Fresh Fallen Snow

Tennessee weather is some manic, unsettled creature that could be written by Tennessee Williams. This past week saw 50 degree swings in 24 hours. It snowed, slightly, and everything shut down. It happens every winter. We get our one or two snows that actually accumulate, and all the Northerners are quick to make fun of how the South shuts down for snow. And the Southerners are quick to cite the fiscal costs of salt trucks and plows for mountainous roads that only get icy once a year. We just wait a couple days until the temperature hits the 60s and melts everything. The snow doesn’t stay.

Southerners know how to appreciate snow. We anticipate with the excitement of a child. We watch it fall in wonder. We made and cancel plans around it. We let our routines fall away to the mercy of nature.

It’s not often in modern society that the environment shapes our day. We’ve developed our environment-proof bubbles. AC and heat and street lights and snow plows and storm drains. All good things. But that means we are accustomed to temperate, lit, dry places; we don’t really notice the differences outside beyond whether or not it’s jacket weather. Our day-to-day lives stay the same during sweltering July afternoons or rainy February evenings.

Our forefathers kept rhythm with nature. Yes, out of necessity, but I believe it did them well. Rise with sun. Go inside when dark. Siesta in the heat of the day. Hunker down in winter. There is waxing and waning, work and rest, a time for everything. And it’s beyond our control.

As I’ve begun to follow the liturgical calendar, I’ve noticed that the annual flow seeped into me. A season of growth, anticipation, preparation, celebration. Birth, work, death, judgement, rest. The endless summer of parables. A feast that turns an ordinary Wednesday into something special.

It’s healthy to break out of the industrial era grind: set hours, set days, repeated and repeated with an occasionally three-day weekend. So that’s why Southerners are right to stop for snow. It’s a temporary hiatus. It’s an opportunity to stop and stare at nature in excitement and childlike wonder. In a few days, it will all return to normal, so give in to the moments of interruption.

A Woman Deeply Troubled

There are times when I feel like Hannah in the Temple. Alone and emotional and crying at God. I’ve had several of these Hannah moments, and she’s become by favorite woman of the Old Testament. Her faithfulness is admirable. Her anguish is relatable.

But lately I’ve also started to think of Eli. He is well-regarded, wise, faithful. But he failed Hannah in her moment of pain. He sees only a crazed woman disrespecting the sacred space. He doesn’t see her pain. Instead, he accuses her of being drunk. And I can’t help but think part of his judgment comes from her being a woman, and a childless woman at that. She’s no one important. What concern is her spiritual struggle?

Hannah confronts him clearly: “But Hannah answered, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time’” (Samuel 1: 15-16). Eli realizes his error and prays that Hannah’s petitions be granted.

When Hannah has Samuel and dedicates him to the Temple as she promised, she recites what is called Hannah’s Song and what is a prefigurement of Mary’s Magnificat. Her prayer is considered a role model of prayer in Judaism and read during Rosh Hashanah. It’s beautiful and uplifting.

Yet I still identify most with Hannah in her low moment. They are moments of frustration and exhaustion and emotionality. But they are raw and real and healing. The communication with God is full of gripes and tears, but it’s still communication. It’s better to be in the Temple acting like a hot mess than not in the Temple at all.

St. Emilia

St. Emilia of Caesarea lived in the fourth century, just when Christianity was becoming widespread across Rome. She came from a wealthy family and married a lawyer/rhetorician named Basil. Together, they raised a strong Christian family. Several of her nine children are venerated as well: Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Peter of Sebaste, Naucratius, Theosebia (a deaconess), and Macrina the Younger (Macrina the Elder is Emilia’s mother-in-law, also venerated).

After her husband’s death, Emilia lived with her eldest daughter Marcrina. The women lived a life of study and devotion, attracting other women. The family’s property was turned into a monastic community for female virgins. The servants were treated as equals, and the women followed an ascetic way of life.

Somehow when I initially looked for a St. Emily, Emilia didn’t come up. She’s not as well-known in the West, but she had a strong role in the development of Eastern Christianity through her children. I like to imagine that she and Macrina got along as well as my own mother and me.

St. Emilia’s feast day is May 30. Her sons Basil and Gregory share a feast day on January 2.