When Weather Becomes Invitation

by Lori Wilson

I'm beginning to notice how certain weather patterns call me into a deeper stillness, into a day of true contemplation.

A heavy snowfall invites me into profound quiet. I find myself noticing gifts I might otherwise take for granted - the warmth of radiators humming, coffee steaming in my hands, the weight of a blanket, the companionship of those nearby, the technology that lets me text my children and check in with friends. Snow creates this cocoon of awareness.

Heavy rain when I'm safely home brings a similar contemplative state. I watch the water streaming down windows and feel it as blessing - a washing away, a clearing out of emotions and tensions I've been clutching without realizing it. The rain does its work on the earth and somehow, mysteriously, in me too.

And summer's hottest days, when I stay in the coolness and only venture out in early morning or deep evening - those days remind me how drawn I am to light, how much I miss it in winter's long darkness.

But something shifts in this stillness. These weather-created pauses open me to an awareness of others.

I think of those without heat, without a place out of the rain, without cool refuge from summer's intensity. I picture animals leaping through deep snow, searching for warmth and food, finding whatever shelter they can. I see the faces of unhoused neighbors, so grateful for a cup of hot coffee in winter, cold lemonade in summer's heat.

I become aware of how incredibly blessed my life is - that I have this room to think and pray and simply be.

And then Jesus's invitation becomes clearer. This isn't just about noticing my comfort or even feeling grateful for it. The stillness he offers isn't separate from love in action - it's what makes that love possible.

I think of him withdrawing to quiet places to pray, and then returning to touch lepers, feed crowds, notice the overlooked. His contemplation and his ministry weren't two different things but one singular motion. The stillness expanded his capacity to see and love. The loving sent him back to stillness to be replenished.

Maybe the deeper invitation here is this: to let weather-created stillness train my heart for fuller love. To recognize that being wholly contemplative and wholly apostolic isn't a duality to balance but a single way of being - like breathing in and breathing out.

The quiet doesn't take me away from those in my world, those in my sphere of influence. It prepares me to love them more fully, to see them more clearly, to respond more freely. And the loving sends me back to the stillness, where I'm reminded again of who I am and whose I am.

Both are needed. Both are one.

Reflect

• What weather patterns invite you into deeper stillness? What do you notice in those moments?

• When you pause in gratitude for your own comfort or blessing, what awareness follows? Who comes to mind?

• How have you experienced contemplation preparing you to love more fully those in your sphere of influence?

• Where do you sense God inviting you into this singular motion of contemplation and love?

Prayer

God of snow and rain and summer heat, thank you for these natural invitations to pause, these weather patterns that call us out of our hurried rhythms into deeper noticing.

Help us not to hide in our stillness but to let it open us - to blessing and to need, to comfort and to suffering, to gratitude and to response.

Teach us the rhythm Jesus knew so well: to withdraw into quiet so we might return more awake, more able to see, more ready to love.

May our stillness make us more present, not less.

Amen.