A Bird in Winter

We were praying a family rosary the other day, in union with the Cardinals who were gathered in prayer, in Rome, in preparation for the Conclave in which a pope is to be elected.

I live in the Midwest now, a recent transplant from the desert of the West. That day we got a heavy snow, and when you looked out our windows, it was like gazing at a village in one of those Christmas globes. It struck the eye as hauntingly lovely for someone like me who has, for most his life, measured the seasons by whether or not his skin feels it is baking when he steps out the front door.

Winter in the Midwest possesses a strange kind of beauty, a surprising beauty, because everything appears lifeless and gray. It is, after all, a time of death. It seems fitting that we are approaching the Passion and Death of the Lord in the Church Liturgical year.

The snow rests on bare branches; one expects them to snap under the weight, like our Savior under the weight of the beam.

I am told that soon, with the arrival of spring, the birds will serenade us. The grass will become vibrant; flowers will bloom. Nature will resurrect.

So I was surprised when, praying Hail Marys in the living room, comfortably aware that we were insulated from the early March chill outside, we heard it: a bird singing. A bird in winter.

I thought, Hey, you crazy bird, don’t you know it isn’t spring yet?

It isn’t that we haven’t seen any birds around here. But they are few, and it seems contradictory to hear one of them chirping and singing happily while the rest of nature sleeps.

I have a dear friend whose life has been shrouded by the darkness of a personal winter for almost a year and a half. His tragedy has been difficult to share. For him, spring seems a lost hope.

He’s been waiting for a bird to sing--- he would probably be happy to hear a tiny chirp--- for too long.

The delightful Knox version text of Psalm 41 (42 in the Hebrew) has the psalmist lamenting, “Would he but lighten the day with his mercy, what praise would I sing at evening to the Lord God who is life for me! Thou art my stronghold, I cry out to him still; hast thou never a thought for me? Must I go mourning, with enemies pressing me hard; racked by the ceaseless taunts of my persecutors, Where is my God now?”

Sometimes life is like that. It seems we are stuck in an endless winter, like Narnia without Christmas, and there is no prospect for the leaves to return, the flowers to bloom. There are no birds singing outside the window. There are no reminders that God is with us.

But He is. He always is.

The Lord knows the sting of death. He knows intimately the pain of abandonment, of the deep loneliness.

His agonizing cry in the Garden of Gethsemane stands as a word of solidarity with those who have found themselves feeling desperately alone in their pain and terror. He is the God who is with us.

But the silence of God is deafening at times.

I tire of not having answers for my friend, of not being able to share wisdom that awakens his hope. One cannot artificially initiate spring; one must wait for it to come at its proper time. There is a season for everything, a time for every affair under heaven (cf. Eccl. 3:1).

I am reminded that only One is capable of giving hope. Only One is able to enter into our humanity and raise it to life again.

If you pray and listen, you may hear the bird sing, if for a moment, and be reminded that God is always with you, even in the dead of winter. 

And spring always comes. It is sewn into the fabric of time.