St. James Episcopal Church
1170 Broadway
Somerville, MA 02144
(617) 666-1063

The Parson's Letter
February, 2008

Winter Blahs, Winter Blues

Dear Friends,

We all know that February is shortest month of the year, even in leap year.  Nevertheless it is still too long.  We feel in our bones that winter is still to much with us.  For some of us, we have the blahs, and for others, the more serious blues.

There are lots of attempts to make February shorter.  Special events like the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, ski weekends, and Ash Wednesday.  But making February a day or two shorter doesn’t help very much.

This month so often filled with ice and snow is captured for us in Christina Rossetti’s poem immortalized as one of our favorite hymns:

In the bleak mid-winter,
Frosty winds made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
 Long ago.

February seems just too long.  Even the new Burpee seed catalog and the winter cruise section of the New York Times are not enough.  

What is the word of faith that speaks to the human condition when we are blah or even blue?  One of my favorite prayers in the Book of Common Prayer is one that appears in the Great Vigil of Easter and the Ordinal for bishops, priests and deacons.  It contains the essence of the Christian faith:

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light:  Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Whatever you’re feeling this long February, the power of the resurrection and new life is at work in you and in God’s world.

Blessings on you and those you love dearly.

See you in church,

The Rev’d Michael Dudley
Priest-in-Residence