I read an article a few weeks ago about the benefits of being cold.
I hated every second of it.
That usually happens; rejecting things that make us uncomfortable.
And the most frustrating part of the article wasn’t the evolutionary proof that deliberate exposure to extremes is good for us, but knowing that I personally love to grow when I plan it out. Not when nature decides for me.
I’m the first person to turn up the thermostat when I get cold.
But I am starting to think that nothing is an accident when it comes to the environment we find ourselves in.
Our living rooms, or our lives.
Seasons and time are always working in conjunction to one another and choosing to accept the climate rather than run from it is vital to our overall growth.
My to-do lists, timelines and calendars have always been for Spring cleaning. They are color coded with expiration date stamped and they’ve always made me feel good. Good to commit to something I created. Something I control.
But that’s not how the weather works. The one who created our ecosystem knew what He was doing when made the sea and the stars,
the tsunamis and droughts. The Indian Summers and budding winters.
Last week, my mom’s beloved geranium began to bloom in the Texas heat of autumn, which I can imagine wasn’t a part of her plan.
“Can you believe that?!” my mom said as she pointed to pink petals.
“It didn’t bloom all summer long because it was too hot.” Yet for some reason, holiday season is beginning and nature said it is time to come out.
Not because of a date,
but because the weather said so.
I thought about the flower on my parent’s porch. How she didn’t fight and scream in the heat of July, but rather succumbed to reality. It was just too hot to bloom a few months ago. And there wasn’t much she could do about it other than wait. I am wondering if there is a way we can learn from her patience. A way to step away from the pens and lists, the planners and timelines, the metaphorical thermostat and embrace the temperature that’s being given to us today?
If I’m not mistaken, the one requirement of faith is to believe; believe that something out there knows better than we do and wants good things for us more than we want them for ourselves. And when we can embrace the seasons rather than clench onto our calendars or turn up our thermostats at the first shiver we feel,
Maybe we can grow right on time…
God’s time.
Our ancestors knew that consistent comfort brings no growth. In fact, it didn’t provide dinner time or shelter or food. They had to embrace every season, every drought, every ounce of adversity given to them year around. So maybe this winter I am going to try to embrace the cold rather than run to the thermostat. Feel the chills rather than run away from them. Listen to the resiliency my body was made to vibrate and learn to flow with the seasons rather than wish for spring to defrost the parts of my life where I just might learn the most.
It’s November and I’m wondering if winter can be the most fertile season of all.
“Never change your plans because of the weather; be Zen and go with the weather, let the weather reveal itself to you in all its variety and grandeur.”
-Fenton Johnson