The newness of the new year feels like it is settling in. One by one, the Christmas lights on our street are being turned off, the stock show is in town, and school is back in session. Maybe you are off and running with your resolutions or re-calibrating and keeping a steady pace. Either way, I wish you peace and a spirit of searching as we mull over the Epiphany that springs us forward.

We have a rare overcast and wintry day today that speaks to the ordinariness of winter. Gray-brown-white, quiet, cold. On the surface, it brings to mind the words of the carol ‘In the Bleak Midwinter.’ On the surface, it appears that the world is sleeping.

In my bones, I know this to be false.

I also know this because we are dog-sitting right now, and the dogs have gotten into my perennial sunflowers and begun tugging them up by their stalks. In my hustle to collect and replant the torn-out root balls around the yard, I noticed the abundant growth since I planted them last summer. It reminded me of this quote:

“Don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots down there are riotous.”

Curly, purple, and white tubers, thick as could be, surrounded the original taproot. So much life in such a short season! And I could not help but imagine the unnoticed life going on under the surface all around us. The cashier ringing up groceries saving for a long-awaited vacation, the woman in the cubicle next to you taking a call from the neonatologist. The teacher at conferences writing poetry by night; the nurse going though a divorce; the waitress taking night classes.

Not so different from you and I.

Ideas, hobbies, plans, or opportunities have a way of looking different, or presenting themselves at the turn of a new year–maybe you feel it, too? The urge to read, purge, invest in friendships, create, travel, paint, get outside, all going around simultaneously–maybe even things that have lain dormant in you for a long time. I may have succumbed to the idea that the fresh year invites new endeavors. I have my finger in so many pots right now that, on the surface, the days look a little lackluster because progress feels so slow. But, under the surface, it feels ‘riotous.’ 

This is a strange experience in a world that is increasingly curated before and after photos that smack of instant results without the toil. A beautiful garden: Poof!,Polished writing: Poof! Flourishing friendships: Poof! By and large, all of these are the product of just plain grunt work. 

So, as we enter 2023, cheers to the riotous, unseen, sometimes bleak, grunt work that overtakes us behind the scenes. May we give ourselves willingly to it and trust God’s Providence to tend to its untamed growth.

Trust in the Slow Work of God Above all, trust in the slow work of God We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.  – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955)

In other news

Yours truly will be participating in a Guinness Book of World Records for women beekeepers tomorrow. If you see any of the hype on social media, please give it a ‘like.’

Blessed Is She Lenten devotionals are here–if you’d like to purchase, please consider using my affiliate link.

**If you can wait a little longer and would consider using a Lenten devotional that I am putting together–know that it is one of the riotous projects going on behind the scenes, and perhaps telling you about it will give me the accountability to complete it in a timely fashion. More to come!