January Gray

One of my favorite spiritual writers is Dorothee Soelle. Thinking about winter, weather, the cold, the angst and suffering in our world, I came across a line from her book, The Silent Cry.  In this work she writes that amazement includes ‘a bleak side of terror and hope’. She muses that: ‘This ability for wonderment brings about consenting to amazement and is a way of praising.’

These juxtapositions move me outside of the ‘gray’ and invite me to really hear longing to be part of the whole from an immigrant knocking at the door of our border.  I hear awe and wonder in the yearning with the call for voting rights for all in our nation and in our countries as well.   One small Washington town received three feet of snow in one day this month. What a climate change statement! Those who came to help dig this village out brought their hunger to serve and their shovels were praising! 

What amazes you these days? What might transform your ‘terror’ to the grace of amazement? Is there consent in your contemplation for amazement? Where in your January Gray might you find astonishment and hope?

KC Young, OP
Kirkland, WA