in the bleak midwinter

(Sacred Heart Parish, down the street from us – and our first New England snow)

“That first day, the day you arrived, you and I sat in the church and talked about Christmas and the Winter Solstice. […] I remembered having exactly the same conversation with [my daughter Francesca] a year or so ago. Trying to explain about the Christmas star and the scientists’ theory of time. And she listened but was not convinced. She didn’t want to be convinced. She liked the story just as it was.

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone.

That was the way she wanted Christmas to be, and for Francesca it wouldn’t have been magic any other way. Because the carols and the darkness and the presents were all part of a time when life took flight, and the whole world soared to the stars.”

-Rosamunde Pilcher, Winter Solstice

Advertisements