The bones of love

The sun on the bare branches of the oak tree brings out all its colours so that it shines, yellow-green and bright against a blue, blue sky.  None of it could be called brown, yet that is what we might call it if asked.  It isn’t a simple colour, or a simple being.  It holds a covering of algae next to its skin, lifting it high so it can find the sun.  It supports branches of ivy, and a multitude of insects we’d know how to find if we were birds.  We call it tree but it is king and servant of a community and looks as alive now as it does in full-leafed summer.

Winter is about finding a different kind of life to the one we miss from the summer, different colours of soul that we do not notice when full-blown and bright.  As the trees go bare we add layers of clothes to our bodies but the dark can lay bare our souls.  This is the time of year when deaths and breakdowns can peak, when we are vulnerable to the footsteps beyond our walls.  In winter we need to be held by the network of love our lives have woven.  Love that warms the winter cold and lights fires to burn the dross we have carried through the year.  Love that faces our mistakes without losing its smile.  Love that links us to our own strengths when we struggle, to friends when we are alone, to God when we are afraid.  Love that fits our size, the smallness we feel in the large space of world. Love that wears the clothes of this bare season, not a sugar covering that dissolves in the dark.  Winter is the time to find the bones of love.