Winter days can have a way of dragging a person down. Cold, windy, overcast. Yet on those days when the sun breaks through and the cold becomes brisk, the wind becomes bracing and the grey skies break to allow a shade of blue seen only on those days after the winter solstice, the spirit comes alive and possibilities open. I remember my mother receiving and pouring over seed catalogues during the dark days of February. The pictures of beautiful flowers and attractive fruit and vegetables were like a balm to her winter-weary soul. When I asked her why she spent so much time on them, she let me in on her secret: looking at beauty, its potential, its siren song of what could be, was a source of hope in the midst of sterile white gardens and frosty windows. She wasn’t afraid to live fully in the present, but she could dream about the future and fruition.
– Blog entry by a Sister of the Precious Blood