January is so sad. It slinks in like a snowy sludge after the high spirits of the holidays. It sits like an uncomfortable guest in glitter-wrecked living rooms emptied of Christmas.
I packed up all my Christmas decorations and feel like a stranger in my own home, which now houses some dark liminality. It reminds me of a poem by Philip Larkin:
Home is so sad. It stays as we left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.
The wintery period between Christmas and Easter is a difficult one for me. The hopeful anticipation of Advent withers into . . . what? Well, as I have been told at church, the Epiphany and the baptism of Jesus. But these are two days, not seasons. They feel like an ending.
And I dislike the notion that “every ending is a new beginning.” Sometimes endings are objectively sad. Sure, resurrection looms somewhere around the corner of January’s chill—far ahead in the middle of the new year. But in the meantime there is the pitiful droopiness of things. The gray skies and freezing rain desolate the already-dreary roads and roadsides. Fog and chill weigh heavily on our moods. Smiles are difficult to muster in the early morning light, and they are difficult to see in the early dusk.
Resurrection looms somewhere around the corner of January’s chill. But in the meantime there is the pitiful droopiness of things.
But I know these are the musings of a mood that is comfortable with melancholy. Luckily the liturgical calendar leaves little room for wallowing. Every first Sunday of January, the year opens with the remembrance of Jesus’ baptism. In last Sunday’s service, the homily explained the baptism of Jesus as a prophetic thing—a picture of how Jesus would soon die and be buried, but rise again.
“The death and resurrection of Jesus is where we begin as believers,” the rector said, “and—happy New Year—where we begin again each year.”
So the baptism of Jesus is a reminder of what is to come, a prophecy that I have somehow missed for twenty-three years. The gloom of January is a necessary thing, the beginning of a three-month period reflecting a period of three days—three lonely, fearful days—when hope seemed to be absent. Resurrection is around the corner. In three months, April will shower us in light. We will rejoice that our faith is not in vain.
The death and resurrection of Jesus is where we begin as believers, and, happy New Year, where we begin again each year.
But joy cannot be full without grief. I am struggling under the early dark of winter, but it is a dark that leads to the light of redemption. I am beginning to understand what believers are trying to say when they admonish grieving individuals to be grateful.
You don’t have to stop grieving. But it is good and right to give thanks and praise to God in spite of grief. Death is very real, but so is resurrection. And one day we will see the risen Comforter with our own eyes.
But for now there is the sadness of January, something I am learning to accept. “Just as well,” as Mary Oliver would say. Now is the time for “learning // the thin life, waking up / simply to praise / everything in this world that is / strong and beautiful.”
Sometimes the goodness of God is early dusk. But strength and beauty persist. Do not confuse sadness with hopelessness. And do not equate silence with absence. Praise in spite. Let joy slowly color the neutral tones of winter with the pastel delight of Spring.
Just as well. Time
to read books, rake the lawn
in peace, sweep the floor, scour
the faces of pans,
anything. And I have been so
diligent it is almost
over, I am growing myself
as strong as rock, as a tree
which, if I put my arms around it, it does not
lean away. It is a
wonderful life. Comfortable.
I read the papers. Maybe
I will go on a cruise, maybe I will
cross the entire ocean, more than once.
from "Letter to ______" by Mary Oliver
Books I’m reading
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis
Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg
Albums I’m playing
Automatic World by The Brummies
Buttertones by The Buttertones
Sing Lustily and with Good Courage by Maddy Prior and The Carnival Band
Easy Way To Lose by Ray Bull — EP
Flight Risk by Tommy Lefroy — EP
To you and yours—Happy New Year from Light After Rain.