Blizzards
Listen: “After the Storm” by Mumford & Sons
During the two weeks I stayed in a beautiful cabin in the San Juan Mountains, I experienced three blizzards. I have traveled to the Rocky Mountains every year for over forty years, but I am usually in the mountains in the summer months. So I haven’t been in very many mountain blizzards. I enjoy it.
I was tucked away safely in the mountain cabin while the winds howled and the snows rushed and swirled sideways. I ventured out on a walk in the blizzard a few times just to feel the harshness of the environment. It would be hard to survive a high mountain blizzard without shelter. The winds feel like they cut through the clothing layers straight to the bone. The wildlife disappears. The trees bend and snap. The mountains stand in silent witness as the winds and snows seem determined to destroy life. It feels like nature is in a rage against itself.
Once the storm quiets and the sun comes out, you see beauty all around. As the snow absorbs the sounds, the silence feels majestic, serene, and alive. As the snows melt, creeks and streams begin to carve their way into rivers. The San Juan Mountains are host to the headwaters of several regal rivers: the Uncompahgre River, the Dolores River, the Animas River, the San Miguel River, and the San Juan River, which all eventually flow into the Colorado River and down into Mexico. The Rio Grande River also starts in the San Juan Mountains, which flows to eventually form a portion of the US and Mexico boarder.
The harshness of a mountain blizzard transforms into the life-giving flow of rivers abundant with living water for drinking, flora, fauna, agriculture, and recreation. These rivers sustain the life and economy of ecosystems, towns, cities, states, and nations.
Up in the midst of the mountain blizzards I was experiencing, I was meditating on the blizzard of my own life over the past few years. The harshness of the blizzard winds and snows felt like death. I wasn’t sure if I would survive the storm, wasn’t sure if I cared to survive.
How do we respond creatively to adversity? Nature is always creating. Creation begets creation. Perhaps any storm can be transformed into life-giving water. Here are a few of my reflections on storm transformation:
Posture of radical acceptance. It’s a type of surrender to the reality of what is, what we can not change. We can always wish that it wasn’t so, or we can live with regrets, but the more noble path is to accept life on life’s terms. Radical acceptance of what is is the first step towards adapting creatively with love, beauty, and forgiveness.
Posture of learning. We can always learn. Trauma and adversity can lead to new growth. Post-traumatic growth has melted into life-giving streams of water for the abused, the addicted, the disabled, the marginalized, the oppressed, and the diseased. Think of all the foundations and nonprofit services which have emerged out of adversity in order to bring life and hope to those who suffer.
Posture of community. We can’t do it alone. And the good news is: We are not alone! There is a support community for every type of storm that humans encounter. Don’t do it alone. Isolation kills.
Posture of forgiveness. On some level, we must forgive everything (including ourselves) in order to move forward with grace, love, creativity, and beauty. I resonate with these thoughts from Richard Rohr:
Our first forgiveness is not toward a particular sin or offense. Our first forgiveness, it seems to me, is toward reality itself: to forgive it for being so broken, a mixture of good and bad. First that paradox has to be overcome inside of us. Then, when we allow God to hold together the opposites within us, it becomes possible to do it over there in our neighbor and even our enemy (“Including Everything,” cac.org, August 31, 2017).
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
