Winter this one out

Available for 8 days

Good morning! And if you’ve been observing ‘dry January’ – the increasingly popular habit among drinkers of abstaining from alcohol for the first month of the year to atone for Christmas excess – congratulations, you’ve reached the last day of your month-long fast. Despite the habit of new year resolutions, January has always seemed to me a cruel time of year in the northern hemisphere to take on austere practices. Sure, the turn of the year chimes well with the idea of new beginnings. But who actually relishes the prospect of embarking on a new exercise or diet regime when the weather is so cold and often miserable? Wintering Out is one of my favourite poetry collections by the late Co. Derry poet and Nobel laureate Séamus Heaney. Heaney saw ‘wintering out’ as perseverance in difficult times. “If we winter this one out, we can summer anywhere,” he famously said of his inspiration - offering comfort and hope that overcoming difficult times would lead to better days. It is hope like this that has sustained people is some of the most difficult moments in human history. It’s true in our own lives too. Dark and cold times are lived in the knowledge that one day there will again be light and warmth. Farmers and people close to the land know that you have to have faith that what you plant in the ground will one day blossom, even if it often lies hidden from view while it slowly grows. Today, I pray to have the patience to winter this one out, knowing that as sure as the daylight follows the darkness of night – the spring will soon follow the winter. Amen.