Rev. Sue Phillips
Keene Unitarian Universalist Church

December 2004

A friend writes about finding brittle, dried-out maple seed pods in her pocket recently – the ones that float down like helicopters in April and May. The wings turned to dust as she pulled them out of her winter coat. The center part, where the seed sits, was hard and shriveled. But then she broke the husk, and in the very center sat the seed itself, glistening and bright green – the color of spring.

We are a bit like the husk and the seed as winter pulls the darker days. We are in there, behind the protective shell, alive yet, but increasingly hardened to the elements. It is a good time to turn inward, to stock spiritual provisions for the long dark ahead. Our ancestors learned this essential adaptation from the earth itself: even the trees and the mountains rest and watch in winter; even the animals in the forest and plants in the fields.

How will you nurture the vibrant green seed inside your own hard, protective husk? How will you remember the seed when the days turn icy and stark, and the sky lives only in shades of gray? These are good questions for December, when we have begun the inevitable slide into winter, when it seems impossible that the daylight will grow weaker, and then it does. But they are also spiritual questions about emptiness and longing, loneliness and loss of faith. They are questions about how to keep on facing illness, or pain, or the simple daily struggles that make up our days. How will you remember that seed in the darkest winter hours?

Perhaps this winter you might engage in a spiritual practice that explicitly germinates hope. Some of you will journal, or meditate, or walk. Others of you will pray, or sing, or serve people in need. For some, coming to church on Sunday is the only practice you need. Whatever you choose, however you hold the glistening green seed inside you, may you find peace and comfort in the long dark ahead.