On Winter, and the Seasons of Memory

As a child, summer was always my favorite season. I was not exceptional, as I'm sure most of us can recall our fondness of what little freedom we had: no school, family vacations, and lots of time to play outdoors. My brother and I would construct wild imaginative adventures in our wooded backyard in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. We would envision a whole world under the canopy of the longleaf pine and green, gently swaying maple trees, which served to shelter us as we engaged in an epic clash of Union and Confederate forces, or as we crossed swords in some imaginary medieval landscape, or as we stormed the beaches of Sicily in 1944. Violence to me was not yet deadly serious, as it would become during my years in downtown San Jose, or as I now witness it in my daily life in Fresno. Because it was contained within the safety of our shared imagination, it could do us no lasting harm. Sure, we had times to enjoy the winter snow (and I have one early memory of crawling through makeshift snow tunnels during the blizzard of 1996), but summer-with the trips to the beach, hiking in the Blue Ridge, and visits to Washington D.C., probably held more of my fond memories than any other season.

And as I grew older, I saw that the world took on a different hue. The vivid greens of my childhood, as I remember them, were replaced by the grays and browns of my early teenage years in San Jose: the vast, sprawling place now known more for computer chips and young billionaires than the multiethnic mosaic that, for me, led me fully into the difficult waters of my own ethnic identity journey. It was a transitional season where the culture shock was so fierce that my own evolution from boy to adolescent, with all the bodily changes of puberty and testosterone and advancing tastes (as I started listening to my own music and picking my own clothes), was put in vivid relief against the noise and vigor of inner city life. I felt alive and fell in love with the city, and embraced the love for these different hues.

As a young twenty-something, I looked to the earth tones of autumn. I heard many of my college friends talking about how much they love that season, and often caught myself thinking in similar terms. Whereas some would talk about PSL season (and I would no doubt gag), others more artistic than I would take pictures of the multicolored trees (while I would silently admire their cute scarves and boots) and we would shiver as the blustery wind replaced the otherwise perfect temperatures of our coastal California paradise. Yet the undercurrent of oblique racism of the academy culture and the tendency for white liberals to ignore their own cultural biases often made living there too much for me, and I welcomed nature's ability to mirror my own inner frustration. The cold winds screaming in from the ocean allowed me to not say a word, and the mute stars held their light far above the lonely world, each representing billions of years of nuclear reactions that might some day bring forth the kinds of wonders we observe in our own solar neighborhood. As I studied science my eyes came to focus around the vast cycles of change in our universe: in the intricate regeneration of our own cells and genetics, all the way out to the mutations and collisions of galactic superclusters.

After graduating, I worked in a completely different context than the one I studied in, and made it a point to participate in two church congregations with visible diversity-both ethnically and socioeconomically. Still, I shared the frustrations of most of my millennial counterparts: in the face of an overabundance of information, how do we assign importance and meaning to all of it? Is it my political participation that defines me as an individual(as one who voted for President Obama both times he ran)? My ethnic and racial heritage (as one of mixed ancestry)? My family culture? My socioeconomic class and the privileges therein (as an upper middle class in a very educated nuclear family)? My religious preferences (as one with an evangelical  Protestant background yet converting to Roman Catholicism)? Ultimately, the multicolored leaves that we Californians cherish so much (because, remember, we don't see them as much as you East-Coasters) did nothing to assuage my existential questions, and I still hadn't found what I was looking for. Yet as I evolved, I found that I could hold two different ideas in tension and allow myself to be okay with that, just as a deciduous leaf holds the gray, green, brown, and yellow together before falling to the ground once more. I was white AND hispanic, Catholic AND evangelical, Indigenous AND conquistador, deeply religious AND philosophically agnostic. I heard stories written hundreds, in some cases thousands, of years ago, and reflected on how they spoke to my own experiences. Yet my head was still full of theoretical constructions, and my mind fired with such intense activity that I found myself losing touch with reality itself. The dark side to my mental and emotional makeup finally reared its head, in the Autumn of 2013.

Ultimately, it took one catastrophic moment of trauma to put all of this in perspective, and just as any ego death does, it allowed me to open myself to true healing and growth in a new and necessary way. The wonder and whimsy of the Fall season changed into the terrifying, dangerous death of winter. As I struggled to reassemble the pieces of my broken psyche, I had to admit that my own efforts actually made everything worse. Only in the place of my complete helplessness did I finally learn how to surrender, whispering the words of Jesus on the cross each night before I fell asleep: Into your hands, I commend my spirit. The pneuma or "breath" in that Greek confounds biblical scholars, and you can take whole classes on pneumatology at fancy seminaries. But for me, while I lay in bed at the hospital, it was my literal breath, the functioning of my lungs, that I was thinking about. As I slept I had to allow the mystery of my brain's ability to keep my body alive. The drugs and haze of that experience mean that, like any victim of trauma will tell you, the memories come back in bits and pieces, and sometimes scream loudly enough to force me to stop work for a whole day. Yet through it all I have learned to just sit and breathe, my chest rising, holding, and falling again. As I see my breath in held misting in the winter air, it is a visible reminder of the grace and gift of my life. That for me, more than any words, is a prayer of deeper authenticity than any beautiful liturgy I could ever compose.

In winter we cannot stay outside for long without our bodies telling us to find the warmth inside. For someone like me, naturally attracted to exploration, experiences, and wonder, it is normally something I avoid for long periods of time. Yet solitude is necessary for me, and for all of us. If I, as Henri Nouwen writes, allow my restless loneliness to be transformed into the restful waters of solitude, I can more fully be present to the human experience, and be grateful for all I have: the friends, family, food, communities, and cultures that have already shared so much for me, and given me so much to live for. I hear it mirrored for me in the voices of those who live on the street, who always say the same thing when asked what they are thankful for: simply being alive. In winter, we gather around the table of Giving Thanks ( the word for that, by the way, is Eucharist in Latin, the term we Catholics use for the most sacred and holy sacrament of the church). We celebrate God's presence and each other's presence through the modest means of bread and wine, turkey and gravy, even tamales and pozole. In winter, the snows outside provide a mute for the chaos and noise that normally characterizes our modern lives.

Winter is a time I return to my favorite stories and hear them again. Whether they are from my family or the many rich oral and written traditions of our civilization, I always hear something new. Thus I resonate with Ignatius Loyola as he was dragged bloody from the battlefield of Pamplona, not because I want to be like him anymore, but because I can pity and love him in that moment of sad, almost humorous, vainglory. I hear John of the Cross reflecting on his torture in the dungeons of Toledo, sharing how writing poetry was allowing his memory to be transfigured into a vision of ecstatic union with the Divine, and give thanks for the gift that poetry has been for me. As we change, the interior seasons change, too. The deeper work of the Great Spirit always allows purgation, a detachment, and an alienation from what sustained and nourished us before. Using the language of another Spanish mystic, the interior rooms of my soul are opening, and instead of being afraid of the cobwebs and monsters hiding in the deep, I become friends with them, acknowledging that embracing my imperfection is a pathway to my true humanity. A musical group popular in my circles sings about this journey, although I would argue that it only tells half of the story. The next step, for me, is to surrender that desire of mine to control everything, to find nourishment, love, and affection externally, and allow it to well from the vast chasm, the abyss of grace within. No doubt I am not done yet, and I will stumble and mess up again. Yet as I return to the well of stillness within, I I allow the winter's calm to bring me into silence, I find what I always wanted. In that space do I remember who I really am, and therefore recognize what is true for all of you: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. I return to the world each day (or at least my desire is that I'm able) ready to give and receive from that sacred, mysterious love welling from that infinite spring inside all of us.

The Philip Gröning film Der Grosse Stille (Into Great Silence) has one of the most poignant picture of winter I have ever seen. I don't want to spoil it for you, but it allows me to reflect on how my life's journey is one of coming back to the same place with a new set of eyes. I hope I'm not near the end of my journey as a pilgrim on this earth. I hope I have lots more life to experience and share. But ultimately, that's not entirely up to me, and all I have is each kairos to say yes to.

This Christmas, I look forward to spending time with my familia, watching football, enjoying good food, listening to some great music, and having fun with some people I love. I want to end this 2015 with what I really want to say to all of you, and to the One in Whom We Live, for this moment, for your moments, and the ways they echo to me throughout my life. I offer you this in the words of my ancestors,

Dziękuję. Grácias. Ixehe. Tapadh leat. Dios meiamekua:

Thank You.