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Across the Pastor’s Desk by Josh Enderson

This is always the point where it sets in. This is always the point when I am officially tired of snow and winter and am ready for spring to be here. It seems like this winter has been longer than usual. Maybe you felt that way, too. 

It seems like, even though things are moving back toward “normal,” many of us still spent time isolated from others this winter. Maybe you tested positive for COVID or were exposed and had to isolate. Or maybe it was just the bitterly cold weather that kept you bundled up at home hibernating like a bear. Regardless, it seems like we’ve all been a bit boxed up this winter.

Rather than see our remaining weeks of winter as a time to dread, maybe we can see it as a time to slow down and sit with God. We can see it as a time to disconnect from some of the things that can overtake our lives when we are more active. Can we put the phone down for an hour, or maybe even two? Can we pause the streaming service at the same time? Maybe it can be a time to grab a book or just watch as the snow blows outside your window? Can we just slow down and sit with God?

When I lived in Luverne, I used to take my dog on daily walks to the state park near town. Up on the hill overlooking the town, you couldn’t hear road traffic, just the sound of wind in the tallgrass prairie. The cellphone came along, but it was on silent, and I made it a rule not to look at it while I was there. Otherwise, I’d miss the healing presence of God’s creation, of just being in nature. It was a time of solitude, a time when God could reach out and break in. But, without turning things off, I don’t think that it would have been as meaningful. 

How can you find time to disconnect and sit with God, even if it is just in your house? Or, if you find yourself with a bit too much solitude, how can you find ways to make peace with that and see some blessing in it? Throughout time, God has taught God’s people their greatest lessons when they were in places of solitude and isolation: the Israelites in the wilderness, the desert fathers and mothers, all those who have lived a monastic life. What might God teach you in your winter classroom?

Josh Enderson is pastor at Hayward and Trondjhem Lutheran churches.