Cold bites the air, frost grips the earth. Beneath the surface, something stirs—midwinter is not stillness, but a quiet revolution. Weeks have passed since the solstice, and weeks remain before the Vernal equinox—spring. The groundhog has seen its shadow, hinting at more cold still to come. In the depths of winter, it can feel as if nothing will bloom again. Everything seems out of season—except, perhaps, hot cocoa and marshmallows. Or is it?
Far from town, I’m smitten by the bushy dogwoods, now a much deeper red, almost burgundy, than a week ago. And then I see the river willows have turned golden—a striking contrast against the whites, browns, and grays of the dormant world around them. Are they taking their last deep breath of hibernation, or casting off winter’s grip and leaning toward spring?
As Madeleine L’Engle penned, we live on a “swiftly tilting planet.” The next season always comes.
Ecclesiastes reminds us, “To everything, there is a season”—wisdom the Preacher recorded long ago and Simon & Garfunkel later set to song.
Not long ago, nature dictated when food appeared on our tables—savoring the first strawberries of summer, waiting for the harvest moon to bring in the apples, each season a small, sacred event. Now, with global supply chains, raspberries arrive in winter, and corn on the cob graces our plates long past summer’s golden fields. The supply chain has softened the edges of seasonal scarcity.
It may have begun with forcing tulips to bloom in greenhouses, a defiance of frost. Bananas, once a mid-winter luxury, became an early triumph of year-round availability.
And with that, seasonality transitioned from a necessity to more of a suggestion.
Yet, not everything yields to our demands. Cherries are stubbornly seasonal—delicate, fleeting, never quite as good when forced. Peaches, though, are an argument for patience. Farmers pray for cold, but not too much; for blossoms, but not too soon. A tree-ripened Elberta peach, soft and fragrant, is almost a delicacy—one that no supply chain can replicate.
I stare at my winter scene and wonder aloud if we won’t eventually conquer these seasonal holdouts, too. Red osier dogwoods whenever we please? River willows with pussy-toed buds at the Trader Joe’s check stand?
We have softened the edges of scarcity, but at what cost? Will we keep bending the world to our will until summer raspberries are expected, and mountains wear snow in July for the sake of an aesthetic? The thought chills me almost as much as the idea of a fresh raspberry in midwinter once did.
For me, winter has always been a time of waiting, of dormancy, of retreat—a respite not terribly unlike forgiveness. Both require patience: the quiet surrender of what is, the willingness to let things rest and unfold in their time.
Nature takes a beat, pausing before the rush of renewal. Perhaps the stillness is a gift, a moment to rest, to restore, to heal. Christ’s healing power works in much the same way—rinse and repeat. Winter is not death, but preparation. The hush before the bloom.
Maybe some things are meant to be in season when the world is cold. Maybe winter ripens human connection—fireside conversations, lingering dinners, the warmth of stories told under blankets. Maybe this is when patience and reflection grow, when silence becomes fertile ground for thought.
Winter may seem like the middle season—one where it appears nothing much is happening. Rosabeth Moss Kanter once observed that “everything in the middle looks like a failure.” When life is frozen, whether in soil or circumstance, we are tempted to force it along, wake it, and urge it forward, ready or not.
But what if we simply stopped? Stopped rushing. Stopped forcing. Stopped demanding spring, summer, and fall during wintry times—wintry, not just wintery, because this is more than a season; it’s a state of being, a necessary dormancy.
Perhaps the answer lies in embracing our natural seasons rather than resisting them. Rachel Carson wrote, “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” The rhythms of the world are meant to be honored, not conquered. Just as Christ offers us grace again and again, so does nature—rinse and repeat.
So, wait.
Let the cold do its quiet work—whatever that may be. Let the season be what it is. Let patience have its place. While I enjoy raspberries no matter when served, I’d be okay to wait for them to ripen in my neighbor’s patch, or accept that I’ll have to stand in line come fall for a high-priced quarter bushel of picked-sweet and miraculously good peaches.
Spring always comes, like dogwoods blossoming after winter’s grip, or peaches ripening under a patient sun. We don’t force it. We don’t rush it. We simply trust—everything points to that.
And when it does, it will be enough.
