December 14, 2016 – Fraternized

I am now a little past one month since my spinal fusion surgery, and thanks to God and to everyone’s prayers, my recovery is going well. Even the surgeon expressed amazement that considering three spinal fusions, not only can I walk, but I walk without a cane, and the pain that led me to do the surgery is virtually gone. No pain, no cane.

For those who watch a certain HBO series, “Winter is coming,” has particular meaning. It has meaning in our world as well. A surprise snow storm dropped almost 5 inches of snow on us, catching even the meteorologists by surprise. Just a little ways north of us and south of us, they did not catch the snow. I was planning to drive my car for the first time since surgery, but got grounded for fear of the wintery conditions.

It also brought to mind a couple of lines from the Akathist, “Glory to God for All Things.”

What sort of praise can I give You? I have never heard the song of the Cherubim, a joy reserved for the spirits above. But I know the praises that nature sings to You. In winter, I have beheld how silently in the moonlight the whole earth offers You prayer, clad in its white mantle of snow, sparkling like diamonds.

You are the Source of Life, the Destroyer of Death. By the light of the moon, nightingales sing, and the valleys and hills lie like wedding garments, white as snow. All the earth is Your promised bride awaiting her spotless husband.

You can see all of the photos which I took from my front and back porch at 1st Snow of December 2016. I didn’t even dare walk (with or without a cane!) on the ice and snow. For the first time in months, I took a few photos to capture the beauty.

“St. Paul can write to the Philippians,

‘Whatever is true,

whatever is honorable,

whatever is just,

whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely,

whatever is gracious,

if there is any excellence,

if there is anything worthy of praise,

think about these things’

(Phil. 4:8).

Because in thinking about these things, Paul says, our minds are on Jesus Christ. In the next chapter of the same letter he says, ‘Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true’ (Eph. 5:8-9, emphasis added).

Conversely,

anywhere there is deceit or distortion of truth;

where there is a degree of denial on however a deep a level;

where we are dishonest- out of convenience or out of the need for power or gratification or out of misinformation or ignorance – or if we are ‘living a lie’;

there is a distance from Christ himself.”

(Peter Bouteneff, Sweeter Than Honey, p 33)