My family was visiting for Christmas and I wanted to show them around the city I had recently moved to. For some reason, I thought it'd be a good idea to take them to the botanical garden... in December.
I realized the ridiculousness of it when we arrived. Where were the flowers? Where were the colors? The fountains were turned off, the soils were wet, and brown leaves covered the ground. The whole place was grey, cold, and dead.
"Everything's dead," we commented redundantly as we trudged through the place. "There'd be more to see in the spring." Can't argue with that.
I pictured what it would look like in the sunnier months. It definitely would be prettier with more colors, more smells, and generally more things to look at. Right now, though, it's pretty boring.
But then my attention snapped back to the present—what if I wasn't comparing it to what it should look like? If I took in the scene as it was now, what would I see?
When I stopped seeing through the lens of comparison and expectation, I began to see things as they were. And only by doing so, by dropping that tainted lens, was it possible for me to properly receive what was presented to me. Disappointment is only the result of unmet expectations, after all.
And so, all of a sudden, I saw something different. The deadness of the garden was no longer a disappointment, but something that could be appreciated. There is, in fact, a certain beauty in it.
Why?
I didn't see death. I saw rest.
Nature was hibernating, conserving the vitality it held in its soil. The birds that still chirped in the branches, the squirrels that scurried along the forest floor, and the islands of evergreen hollies that boasted their reds and greens amid a sea of brown and grey—they were echoes of life and participants in the collective sleep.
I saw in it a mirror of the human experience. Nightly, we sleep from the tasks of the day. Weekly, we take a Sabbath from the scurrying of the week. We take sabbaticals from the marathon of our careers. And for those of us who don't take days off, shouldn't we take a clue from Nature herself?
With this change in perspective, the garden wasn't ugly anymore—it was beautiful. There's a certain peace in watching nature sleep, the same loveliness in watching a loved one sleep. Aren't we missing out on something crucial in our constant expectation to be entertained?
All too often, we expect ourselves to run at max capacity every day, every week, and all year round. Our society demands that the same busyness, rhythms, productivity, and flashiness from the summertime continue through the wintertime.
But that's like expecting the flowers to bloom constantly irrespective of the season. If Nature herself doesn't operate that way, why should we? This is a wild idea, I know, but perhaps we would be healthier and happier if we worked with our natural rhythms rather than against them.
In Christianity and Judaism, there's the idea of the Sabbath. It was modeled by God when he rested from creation and later commanded that Israel follow the same pattern of being. The image of God's resting has more to it than just taking a break. It's also about the appreciation of what is good in life and in the world. So our periods of rest should also be about more than just restoring energy.
Taking stock of the beautiful and the good in our lives, with hearts of gratitude, is about reorientation. The Sabbath in Judeo-Christian practice includes acts of worship and prayer. It's a resetting, an evaluating, a remembering, and a reorientation towards what is most important. Evening reflections help us do this. Weekends help us do this. Winter can help us do this too.
Our dopamine-saturated lives have conditioned us to see a lifeless and colorless botanical garden as dull and boring. In the same way, our preference for constant activity often overshadows the deep need for a reset in our lives. But winter provides us an opportunity to sit in tranquility, to reflect, and to recharge. Maybe, with the right eyes to see, we can start to find peace, joy, and beauty in unexpected ways and unexpected places.
Stay purposeful.
– Nathanael
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