Once in a while I am asked as an area clergy to write a reflection. The words reflection seems to fit very well with the fall and early winter season. 

Holidays seem to point to things that have just completed or are in the past. Harvest festivals, All Saints, All Hallows Eve, Halloween, Veterans Day and as I write this on the Eve of Thanksgiving I am reminiscing about family and the past. All of these things completed or gone some forever! Trees devoid of leaves and the slight bite of the chilly late November air as it breezes past your face, it is easy perhaps to turn a little melancholy. 

But today there is something that can change my perspective a bit the sun is shining, and the sky is blue and even though the air is cool, I feel warm inside. The sun cultivates a feeling of hope of something to come a remembrance that the dark will not prevail and only a few months from now the cycles of growth will begin again. 

We need this down time to regenerate and to rest the soil, as well as ourselves. We human types like to think we can power through the down times and with the aid of modern lighting and technology we can, but we also need to realize that winter is the time for planning and deep thought, perhaps searching our lives and asking questions that we had little time for through the rest of the year!

Advent begins this coming Sunday as well and we will be in a time of introspection, as well as a time of anticipation of things to come! Mostly the Christ. I sit here thinking about some of my favorite wintertime activities, time with friends, music and coming together to have meals. 

When I was a hobby farmer I would love to get those catalogs from Burpees and Jung and many others that were a cornucopia of veggies and fruit seeds and plants that I could order. I would sit on those cold rainy/snowy days and try to layout a garden plan and devise new ways of trellising tomatoes and trying to pick just a few of the hundreds of tomato and pepper plants to try the next year. These times give us the opportunity to hope, to dream. Time that is filled with looking not just at what I could actually see but my vision of what could be! 

These down times these cold months are a blessing for all of us. It gives us time to stop and think. That vision of what could be is what drives us from just existence to being part of the creation that surrounds us! Hmm…. I pray that you will take advantage of the slower winter pace and find time to dream of What could be in your world. I pray you follow the natural flow and take time to look at the past and to hope for what will come! Amen.

— Reflections appears regularly on the religion page. The column features a variety of local writers, coordinated through the Monroe Area Clergy Group. Lance Smith is pastor at Zwingli United Church of Christ in Monticello.