Like Trees in November

A book that I return to frequently is Richard Adam's Watership Down.  For those who have not had the pleasure, it is the story of a group of rabbits escaping a warren being destroyed for a housing development and their journey and struggle to establish a new warren.  I give the synopsis for those who might be inclined ot read it but aren't fond of books with talking rabbits - it is about talking rabbits.  And that makes it sound rather cartoonish.  It is anything but.

There is a chapter entitled "Like Trees in November."  The plot of the chapter is not what got me thinking - rather simply its title.  November is just behind us and the emptiness of the trees and the grey cold dampness in the air are all familiar to me.  I have lived in this clime for decades and it has been the same.  The skeletal branches and colorless sky are hardly cheering images.  Perhaps not cheering, but comforting.  Comforting like a minor key in music.  November, or early December for that matter, is just like that.  It is not uplifting like the brightness of a May day or refreshing like a spring shower but comforting nonetheless.  And largely so because it is familiar; like every other November I have seen - an old friend.  This season is rather like Eeyore or Puddleglum - gloomy but steadfast, predictably there.

I wonder if the pursuit of happiness, our deep desire to be pleased or entertained or joyful at all times, isn't unrealistic and ultimately unhealthy.  The things we need to do to maintain the perky and up state have a toll on our bodies and our souls.  I wonder if the quiet sadness of November isn't actually a gift to us.  We simply can't be perky and up all the time and if we were, it would no longer seem so.  The grey seasons add flavor to the glory ones.

I write this in the first week of Advent - a new beginning to the church year - after a hiatus of some weeks from writing.  Advent, like the month in which it often begins, has a familiar and comforting melancholy to it if you are paying attention.  Scripture lessons in both the daily and Sunday lectionaries speak to the themes of Advent - the coming end of all things when Jesus will return as glorious judge and the promise an hope of that same judge as Savior.  It is somber because of the former and comforting due to the latter.  One of my favorite hymns of the season is O com, O come Emmanuel, itself in a Novemberish minor key - seasonally appropriate and appropriately comforting.

It is only in writing this that I am beginning to understand what is so comforting about Advent and trees in November.  To be sure it is the familiarity and the faithful reappearance each year.  But also it is the quietness of soul which, at least for me, it brings.  God is in the quiet greyness and that is of ultimate comfort.