Trudging Into the New Snow and Year

Deer tracks in the snow are the lone signs of movement on this New Year's morning, save for the handful of birds scittering around the coops, scavenging for a few grains of flung feed. It's -18 as I refresh the chickens' water and feeders, confirming with relief and a peek inside that all survived the frigid night. Trudging back to the house and my warm spot by the fire I think, with a smile, of Jayne Floyd's parting crack as I left East Texas to begin a new ministry 25 years ago today — "I hope you freeze to death!" Teething my gloves and liners off my numb-frozen hands I consider how close she is to getting her wish.

I never imagined, 25 years ago, how deeply my roots would find their way into this Iowa soil and snow; that after a professional lifetime ministering in a troubled but returning urban neighborhood I would settle into a rural acreage with my wife and dogs and a determination to experience first-hand where food comes from. And yet now, 25 years later, retrieving eggs from beneath our hens and anticipating another season of seeds in the soil, it's hard to imagine being anywhere else.

Time, though, is like that — along with the centrifugal force of continuous learning. There is no telling where it might fling you.

And now, with the sun climbing above the orange horizon of this New Year's morning, I wonder what its unfolding days and months will bring. I know it's more common to make Resolutions in these embryonic days, but that practice has always struck me as presumptuous. Let me instead simply determine to be healthy and fully alive and present to each emerging moment; let me pay attention to the fertile possibilities sprouting in each new day, learning what I can, experiencing what they offer, giving thanks for their generosity, following where they lead, and finding nourishment in it all.

And who knows, maybe in the course of it all my fingers will eventually thaw.