A Hard Freeze

Last night it reached 27 degrees. This is the first real hard freeze we have had this fall. It comes at the end of the high holy days. I’m sort of a messianic Jewish believer. Except I’m not Jewish. You figure it out.

I always think about this time. Is this the end of the year or is it the beginning of the year as was celebrated earlier this month on the Hebrew calendar. I think about this new year thing 3 times during the year. Now, Jan 1 (or around the winter solstice) and March 15th, my birthday.

I can make a competent argument for each of them why they should be celebrated as the New Year. I’ll save my arguments on the other two for when they occur.

The New Year should be celebrated now because all things are now done. Everything old is over. Anything from here on out counts only for next year. The freeze out has stopped all old year activities. You can’t start again in the last year. You can’t salvage anything from the last year. It’s all over.

Everything from this point forward looks to a new future. The old is past, frozen, dead and behold all things are become new. What makes this even more impressive metaphorically is the lack of evidence in the new. No matter what you do it means cleaning up messes left over from the last year. It means preparing the soil for new planting. It means putting away everything you used for last year’s crop. The old is gone.

It’s that way with relationships. I don’t mourn much for relationships that freeze over. Many were only seasonal. Some were great. Like the good tomatoes I planted. Next spring I might try them again but I can’t mourn for those gone now.
I cultivate relationships until they either bloom and bear fruit or they are uprooted after a frost and tossed into the recycling bin. A few, I keep carefully in a pot and bring into the sunroom for winter. I have a geranium which is 35 years old, a hibiscus which is nearly as old, a couple citrus trees which are 10 yrs old, a corn plant (Dracena) which may be 40, a philodendron fully 20 yrs old. I have plants I carried with me since college.

They are nurtured and protected from frost, by me. We have had a few close calls. One year the furnace went out in the greenhouse and everything froze off. I spent 2 years nurturing them back to life from the scraps.

So it is with friends and acquaintances. Some get tired of me, Some I get tired of. Some I nurture, even keep them in the sunroom of my heart, and preserve them. Some I allow to freeze off. Much of it is a choice they make. I learned long ago not to force myself on anyone if they don’t want me to.

Some people are like roses. They push me away, they reject me, they make it difficult. I won’t force myself on them. I will allow them to bloom, enjoy them for what they are and prune them back to let them find new growth without my tending. I wonder often if those most beautiful flowers have thorns or if the thorns have beautiful flowers.

This is a great deal about our relationship to God. Sometimes we just need to bring ourselves to the place where he will bring us into the SON ROOM of his heart. Drop the thorns. Bloom because he keeps us watered.

So, Happy New Year. Again. This is the beginning of the beginning of the beginning. And the end of a long hot spell that’s turned cold.

It’ll warm up again.