WINTER is here. I can feel the cold this morning. It is still dark outside, the light seems so far away. On mornings like this I want to wish winter away. Oh how I wish that it was over.

Winter comes in many forms in our lives. Whatever form it takes the universal response to winter is to wish that it will soon be over. It is often a time of year that we want to pass through so as to once again reach the re-birth and renewal of spring.

We do not like cold, the dark, the lifelessness of winter. How we wish that it was over.

We need winter though. We need the times of darkness and coldness. We need the stillness of winter too. We need this time of preparation. We need to slow down and reflect on what has been. We need to feel the cold and experience the fear and loneliness of the darkness to prepare ourselves for the light and the new life that may yet come.

We need to prepare for the new love that can be reborn in the spring time. We need to allow the new love to born in our hearts once again and shine out into our world. We need to remain open to this love in this the darkest and coldest time of the year.

In this darkest coldest season we celebrate the coming of the new light and the new life, exemplified in the birth of a child. A child that is born again in our own hearts when we live in love ourselves. “In the bleak mid-winter, in this world of pain where our hearts are open Christ is born again.”

This is what the season is for. To prepare ourselves for the new love that is yet to born in the mangers of our own hearts. A time to wait for what is yet to come in the New Year.

So let us not wish this time of year to be over, even though it soon will be. Let us instead fully experience this time. Let us prepare for the new love waiting to be born in our own hearts and when the spring time comes let us pour out this Love on a world that so dearly needs this. For surely this is our task. To give birth to love that sleeps peacefully, these silent nights, in the mangers of our own hearts.

Rev Danny Crosby

Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel Altrincham

Queens Road Unitarian Free Church Urmston