At this time of year, we may well agree with Thomas Hood's gloomy appraisal:
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds.
November!
It's easy to feel somewhat depressed at all this absence of sun and of life, with Christmas looming large in the shops yet still far off in practice. Whoever coined the acronym SAD - Seasonally Affective Disorder - for a syndrome affecting those who feel the lack of sunshine at this time of year wasn't too far off the mark. So what can we do to combat this seasonal malaise? I have three poetic suggestions for you.
First, from Walter de la Mare: ‘Look thy last on all things lovely every hour'. Whether we're caught up in too much to do at work or home, or stuck in creeping hours of boredom in hospital, it can be a challenge to drag our attention away from our own problems and to look around for whatever in our surroundings, however tiny or insignificant, is worthy of our grateful attention. But if we manage to find just one thing for which to give thanks, it can act like an oasis in our desert. The apostle Paul wants to focus our attention even wider: ‘Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.' Not as escapists, trying to deny the terrible things that do happen in our lives and the life of the world, but as those who deliberately bear in mind the goodness of the world God created as well as its wounds.
Second, from Siegfried Sassoon: ‘Everyone suddenly burst out singing/And I was filled with such delight...' I'm not suggesting that we all queue up to join the choir - though I'm sure Douglas would give a very warm welcome to any new members - but that we acknowledge the role music can play in lifting our spirits. That may mean playing Bach or Mozart, or humming along to Ella Fitzgerald, Glen Miller or even Jamie Cullen - for why should we give the devil all the good tunes? And Paul agrees: ‘Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts'.
Finally, from Burns himself: ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot,/And never brought to mind?' But even Burns needs some expansion. For while he speaks movingly of the joys of reencountering old friends, at St Andrew's our aim is to make new acquaintance into friends, as well as to keep in touch with those we have long known, whose situation does not allow them to play as active a role as in former years. In spite of the cold, the dark nights and the appeal of our own four walls, then, let's not allow November to isolate us from one another. Instead, as Paul says: ‘Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching.' As November progresses into December, the far-off light of Christmas Day is coming over the horizon. But of course Paul is speaking of the Day of the Lord: the end of time, when loveliness and music and fellowship will not be needed to remind us of God in the dark days; for God will be to us all the light we could ever ask for.