Lilting about Christmas, overlooked in the holiday rush, winter comes to us softly, lifting us, soothing us, gently ensconcing us in somnolence and silence, carpeting the land, and our lives on it, with multiple auras of peace and quiesence.  Before its darkness and aphonia, we bow, riveted by its power, captured by its beauty.  We weep, we rejoice; we delight, we mourn.  We may love its beginning, we may look to its end.
     But winter comes just the same.  It's predictable, it's poignant, it's sure.  It reminds us of rhythm, it tells us of change.  Winter speaks to order, winter underscores pattern, bequeathing point, enabling irruption, shaking us, pushing us, showing us, potently and clearly, that life remains marvelous, incomprehensible, and deeply unseen.
     Wrap yourself in winter, drape yourself in its presence.  Touch the truth of God's remarkable and delightfully befuddling world.