February 2023
With the holidays now firmly behind us, and sprint still a ways off, we asked our students to write about that one should do with the rest of winter
Looking a bit deeper
Sarah Miller
MSMU Class of 2026
It is hard to think of winter as more than a dark and cold season. In literature, tales like "Sir Gawain and The Green Knight" are told amid the long cold winter season. Actually, one of the reasons why the story was so popular was to brighten spirits during the season. Many do have a hard time during this dark season, and finding the good is crucial for overall wellness. But really, what are some things to look forward to in these cold winter months, especially after the holidays?
Personally, I don’t know why people aren't as fond of the winter season. Winter brings beautiful snow and views that people love to see. It brings people together through snuggling close around a fire, or through an act of communion where many indulge hot chocolate together. The love we feel for others can be accentuated due to external factors. In the heat of the summer, many don't want to snuggle close because of the sweltering heat, and weather can be so extreme that people lose houses from hurricanes or storms. In the winter, snow just falls onto houses, and maybe you will be lucky and have off work for a day. Many don't really appreciate the small entities that winter brings and the buggy springtime does not, which is important to recall when the sad times do hit and we are left with our thoughts. Winter brings a lot and there is much to be thankful for, but sometimes we just need to introspect.
During the rest of winter and the new year especially, I like to think of the clean slate that the new year brings. You have the whole year to be the person that you've always wanted to be, with no one telling you otherwise. The freedom to change with the help of Mr. Time can be one of the best motivators there is. Although the beginning of another year may seem sad, mainly because it seems as if the clock is "ticking" with another whole year under your belt, don’t fret. You have time to live your life. Sometimes we may need the reminder, but with the set date of the new year and the anticipation of the new things to come, that is the greatest date to have set.
One of the new things to come is the anticipation of the longer days. After the holidays we have made it over the hill of the winter solstice and are now seeing longer days with more sunlight. With the more sunlight comes the longer stretch where we are able to get in more Vitamin D, which brings us more serotonin and happiness every day. I feel that in the winter we all have less time to be outside because the days are so short, but we’ve already hit the highest part of the curve. The days just get longer from here!
Since we all want to better ourselves for the new year, one thing to do is to really start to think about what things we can change. Maybe not just in a physical aspect but in other ways around us. One thing that I found out at the Mount is how many plastic cups that I use. I calculated it out for how many cups I would use if I had the 21 meal plan for four years of college. There are about 224 days residing at The Mount per year, times 4 years is 896, times two, since we get two drinks per meal, is about 1792 cups. If I were to multiply it with how many students go to the Mount (1741 undergraduate students), in four years at school we would use, in total, 3,119,872 cups roughly. For my new year's goal, I am going to try as hard as I can to become more sustainable. The Mount does so many things to be sustainable, especially in the use of solar panels and renewable energy, but one small step may be something that helps ever-so-slightly to
having a cleaner environment. I feel that it is time to give back and be more conscious of what you do to the world around you, and especially things that you are able to cut out.
Personally, during this time of the year I also like the feeling of a new semester. It is relieving knowing that we do not have to go through a new finals week, because that was a severely stressful week for all students. During syllabus week, students get to cruise and really get familiar with the classes that they are taking. The new start and new classes, with new teachers is not only refreshing, but fun. You get to make new connections with people who you have interacted with before and experience new things. A new semester brings new beginnings and habits that can better affect everyone. One of the greatest highlights of the second semester for me is going to Target and picking out a new 2023 planner and some vibrant new pens. The new planner represents the clean slate that you have in the new year. You get to write your own story and plans, and the most important thing that should be taken into account is your happiness in a time that
may seem to have less things to look forward to.
Although it may seem that we do not have many things to look forward to, we do; it just takes a bit more time to find it. Likewise, there are many things that we need to believe in to know that they are there. We need to believe in ourselves to make a change and develop a schedule so we do find true happiness that is beyond the cold winter months. You are the person that is in charge of your happiness and goals. The hardest part, though, is sticking to it. Devise a plan and take action, so that you can make the most out of your year; because, the days are getting longer, and day by day, the year comes to an end. You are what you make of yourself.
Read other articles by Sarah Miller
A Retreat
Joseph Carlson
MSMU Class of 2025
Christmas is positioned in the middle of winter because that is when there is the least light and the world is the least hospitable to life. The allegory of winter seems intimately tied to hope; hope for spring, hope for Christ, etc. Yet God also created winter good and beautiful as it is. Winter certainly exists to be desolate, so that from that desolation we may pray with the prophet, "Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; yet I will rejoice in the LORD!"(Habakkuk 3:17-19) While it is true that winter is meant to be desolate, we also know that God does not subscribe to an "ends justify the means" philosophy. Therefore, winter must be gorgeous and useful on its own.
I love winter. I feel most myself in winter, not just when it’s snowing or when I’m celebrating the holidays, but when I’m walking around campus at 11:00pm and it’s 15 degrees, or when I’m sitting in my car waiting for the heat to turn on, or when the sun rises red after I’ve already been up for a few hours. It is difficult to describe. I feel freer in my winter coat from the National Soldier Factory in Gettysburg, a wool Swedish Tunic from 1947. I feel capable, as if I’m in some kind of epic, and I have an important role to play.
For all of human history, every day has been a struggle. It remains a struggle, but today it is no longer directly against the dirt and the elements, but rather against feelings of uselessness and complacency. In my mind, though both struggles truly have equal dignity, the former is easier to understand than the latter. I imagine what would happen if I were to tell one of my forefathers that I was struggling to complete one of my tasks, that I was struggling to think of and write an essay in my heated bedroom in February. What would he say? Perhaps he’d think me far more fortunate than him, since I was shielded from the wind and the rain, and since I get to do something I supposedly enjoy. Perhaps he’d pity me and the fact that I’ve lost my powers: I’ve traded in the capacity to walk 30 miles a day for a pair of fuzzy slippers. These sorts of thoughts have often made me feel insignificant, though empowered sometimes as well. Understand that
I am not saying precisely that our condition in slippers is exactly pitiable, I only mean that it seems that we are falling short of something. When it is hard to walk outside because of the biting chill, I remember my human condition, and how there is worth to suffering, and much less worth to complacency.
If all things were easy to us, a number of things would happen. First, we would have less opportunity to be human, since what makes humans special is their ability to choose, even in circumstances when every other inclination points them to choose something else. Second, we would eventually just meet a new equilibrium, only at a lower capacity for enduring suffering than before. Everything would feel mundane as it once did, before it became easy.
Of course, by necessity, we must spend more time inside during the winter than during the summer. Vitamin D’s important, but during the winter there is just less of it to be had. The extended periods of being inside and the increased solitude because my friends are feeling the same things that I am feeling both prompt a desire to work and to think. Most studies have shown that people are more productive in the winter, even prompting theories about the economic capabilities of nations close to the equator vs nations with four seasons. I love desiring to work; similar to before, it makes me feel like I’m having a real impact, and I feel like the person I want to be. I have a kind of vision of the working man inherited from my father, and while there are flaws, I love the idea of me spending my hours doing good things for the glory of God.
One of my great loves is music, and during the winter, I typically take out my Russian classical music CDs, as the Russians seem to understand what cold is. Russian history is intimately tied with immense suffering (especially because of the cold), and it has granted much of its art and music a deeply personal element. Rachmaninoff is my favorite of the Russian composers, and in case anyone wants to get into classical music or believes that they do not like classical music but are open minded, I would recommend listening to his second piano concerto. He manages to make me nostalgic for a time and place that I have never experienced, though after hearing his second concerto so many times, I am filled with memories. I find I get tired sooner now than before, and my roommates and I have made a habit of listening to some of my favorite classical music before we go to sleep.
In my best case scenario, the rest of winter will manage to be a sort of retreat in order to develop some discipline and strengthen my interior life so that I can come back to the exterior world a better man. Social life, too, manages to have some special capacity to nourish the soul when the world outside is cold.
Far too many of our discomforts come from not feeling ourselves. For many, winter doesn’t help, because the world outside doesn’t accept you on a very material level. I would assert, however, that winter does provide an opportunity to reimagine oneself. To go into nature and to not be served by it is not to assert your independence from nature, but rather to assert your rightful position in nature. That is, to flourish in difficult circumstances: it is a self-vision we would all like to have.
Read other articles by Joseph Carlson
Little Adventures
Claire Doll
MSMU Class of 2024
It’s one of those days in January when it’s a bit warmer than normal, but a chill still sits in the air, sinking into our skin. Above us, the sky is blue and bright, with sharp pieces of sunlight piercing the world. Below us, dappled reservoir water envelops the rock we are standing on, creating the rhythm of a tide. It’s early in the afternoon, and my boyfriend and I decided to drive down backroads into the rural part of my town and explore.
In a few hours, the sun will set, and the air will grow colder. Tomorrow I’ll wake up, scrape the frost off my windshield (how intricate nature can be), and drive to buy a latte with extra foam. I’ll probably spend the rest of the day reading, or bingeing a show, or baking cookies. Whatever I decide, I’ll spend the day with intent. I won’t waste it.
I used to hate wintertime because it highlighted the mundaneness of life. The return to routine, especially after the holidays, can make it difficult to find beauty or purpose or reason in anything. As I write this in January, lying in bed, I feel both unproductive and satisfied with the fact that I’ve only worked out and read all day. But I know that in exactly one week, I will be swarmed with schoolwork, with books that I don’t want to read, with my new student teaching internship and many, many lesson plans to write. Yet, I’ll be busy, which is a feeling I’ve been craving since Christmas.
Wintertime is a paradox. We can’t wait to jump back in the routines of the new year, but we also want to spend the cold days wrapped in a blanket, napping away. We love when it snows, when the world is sparkling and crystalline, but we also hate how it takes away from what we’re meant to do. We want to escape the chaos from the holidays, but we also want to make it last for as long as we can.
And it’s hard to live in a paradox.
How are we meant to endure these long nights and short days? This period of the year where everything is cold and gray and mundane?
I’m convinced that everything happens for a reason, and that each season prepares us for the next. However, I’m also set in my belief that we must enjoy every moment on its own to the fullest. Although we are tempted to spend the winter months dreaming of spring and summer, we must live for the present.
In fact, I read a quote that truly resonates with this: "Treat every day as if it is an adventure."
Even in winter.
If we fill our January and February days with little adventures, we can live for and in the moment, therefore making the most of winter.
For example, driving to the reservoir on a warmer-than-usual January afternoon felt almost surreal. Everything was captured in a simple wonder. In winter, the world uses less color and detail to make a deeper kind of beauty—a more intricate and searchable one. However, your adventures can be as miniscule as taking a trip to get coffee. Sometimes, I make an entire journey out of my daily Starbucks runs. I’ll blast the heat, put on my favorite Taylor Swift CD, and crawl down the best backroads in my town. Although it’s winter, I like to find pieces of hidden beauty: the sky, how the sunlight splits into fractals and reflects against every surface. The bare tree branches, reaching their spindly limbs like artwork. The tall, Victorian homes with silver bricks, contrasting the landscape surrounding them.
However, we can also make our own adventures, ones that don’t necessarily need to take place outside like most do. On a bitterly cold Saturday in January, my boyfriend and I drove one hour away to a small town in Pennsylvania. As we drifted down windy backroads, I noticed how gray the world appeared, and how the freezing chill of the air sank into my skin, even though I was protected by the heat in my car. But then we pulled up to a tall vintage barn. Or, at least it looked like a barn, with white bricks and a beautiful charm to it. I then learned that the building in front of me contained four stories filled with rooms and rooms full of books.
Fiction from authors A-Z. Cookbooks. Poetry collections. Travel journals. Memoirs. Classics. Children’s books. All the stories, narratives, and novels you could imagine, organized and lined up against walls and ceilings. The barn was simple, with no decorations or modern appeal—just frosted windows that overlooked the countryside of Pennsylvania, and shelves upon shelves of words.
My boyfriend and I spent hours walking around this bookstore, skimming through chapters and reading summaries. I lost track of time, only to peer out of a window in the bookstore’s attic to see the dusky pink sky. I realized then that I had spent an entire wintry Saturday on a beautiful adventure, and it wasn’t even that difficult.
The following Saturday, I found myself standing at the shore of a reservoir near my house—one that I had always driven past, but never explored. That day was warmer than usual, but the world was still gray, the colors hard to search for. Still, we made the most of that day as well.
Wintertime after the holidays is typically labeled as a time of hibernation, where we sit back in our warm homes and wait for the flowers to bloom, wait for a more colorful world. And while rest and relaxation is important, we must never forget that life is never mundane, not if we try. There are little adventures hidden everywhere: on the backroads to your favorite coffeeshop, or at a small town far away, at a local park. Never let the long nights and cold air stop you from enjoying life, especially a life full of color and spontaneity in a season where it is hard to find.
Read other articles by Claire Doll
Holding a heart
McKenna Snow
MSMU Class of 2023
It’s February, and the major winter holidays are over. Maybe they were great, maybe they were hard. For many, leaving behind the Thanksgiving-through-New Year’s holiday range is a relief. For others, however, the warm glow of the Christmas lights was a security amidst the cold bitter weather. Whatever way that one may feel about the end of the holidays, there is quite a prevalent question that looms with the grey skies and chilly sunsets: what’s next?
Often the tendency, at least in my own experience, is to immediately start looking forward to spring, to Easter, and to warm, sunny days. The rest of winter suddenly seems like a waste of time, and I’d prefer to get it over with in order to move on to "the good days" of spring and summer.
Given that this is my least favorite season, this month’s prompt was especially challenging. But, even though that is the case, I am glad to say that I have learned a lot in how to appreciate winter for all it has to offer.
Several ways regarding the value of winter have become quite apparent to me in college. This first way may come as a surprise to some, but something I’ve come to love about winter is the ability to experience the cold. Now, I am speaking as a resident of states with four seasons, so maybe this point will not be so poignant if the News-Journal has any readers in Alaska or Greenland. But, for all those living in similar conditions as me, I have found this aspect of winter especially comforting: for one-fourth of the year, you have the opportunity to be cold, and to learn from that experience. By this point, I don’t mean that everyone should leave their coats at home this winter—certainly not. Living on a college campus, I have to walk everywhere, so wearing warm clothing is very important. I only want to say that I have found great value in allowing my face to feel the cold as I walk to get food, and to allow my hands to be cold for a few
minutes. Groundbreaking, no?
The value I see in this is, firstly, it encourages gratitude for once you get inside. How often we take for granted our heated homes and warm mugs of tea and coffee! We shy away from any and every element of discomfort through cold in the winter, and that is normal; we simply are not meant to thrive in harsh, cold conditions. But the trade off in this shying away is that we risk losing our gratitude for what and who takes us in when we seek warmth, and we risk losing an opportunity to contemplate what it means to be human. While summer gives many opportunities to connect with nature and to thrive in the warm sun, winter offers a unique and irreplaceable experience in feeling the cold on our face, on our hands, that declares something important: we are embodied beings who need each other!
I did not build the Patriot cafeteria, but it warms me up after a bitter walk from my dorm to get dinner. In that walk, I needed another human being—or many—to make such a circumstance available. Further, I do not provide the heating in my dorm for myself, someone else does. Someone else learned how to design a heating and cooling system, and the wonderful maintenance crew of the Mount keeps it running well all winter long. The same can be said about cars with heating systems, for electric kettles that boil water for tea and coffee… none of that was me, but all of those things impact me and improve my quality of life. Therefore, winter is a unique opportunity to contemplate blessings in my life, as well as the never-ending need I have for the community around me, and in some subtle way, the community’s need for me.
On top of learning to appreciate the value of being [temporarily] cold, I have also come to love the opportunities it affords me to slow down, especially after the holidays. What is the rush to springtime, anyway? I love Easter very much, but there is beauty in the seasons before it as well. Lent is a time of preparation and deepening one’s relationship with Christ to rejoice in the Easter season. How could I love and celebrate Easter as much as I do without the forty days in the desert beforehand that I spent with Jesus? Similarly, how could I love summer as much as I do without knowing what it is like to live without warmth for several months? Perhaps it seems like an exaggeration—couldn’t a month of cold do the same? I don’t think so. We would still find a way to take summer for granted if we only had winter for a month. A holistic view of the seasons invites us to appreciate what we have in front of us for the sake of itself and its
relation to everything else. That appreciation is a skill many Americans lose out on because we are too busy chasing things: the next goal, the next season because we like it better, the next holiday; real life is happening in this moment, in this cold weather.
Finally, winter makes us more intentional about loving one another and ourselves. I find it more difficult to care for myself during this time, but that just means I need to learn how to care for myself more intentionally, when the circumstances aren’t my favorite. To love is an act of the will; as such, because I must choose to become more attune to my needs and the needs of those around me, I must be more deliberate about celebrating existence and human life. Winter gives us a unique opportunity to love with intentionality, rather than with ease. We have to choose to love ourselves and those around us in the winter time, when it comes less easily and there is less "Christmas spirit" to go around, and when we are more prone to irritation. To choose to love and practice gratitude in wintertime is a beautiful way to spend the rest of these colder months.
Read other articles by McKenna Snow
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