Tag Archives: Winter

What Extreme Cold Teaches Us

By Robin Bates | Published: January 8, 2014

As Coleridge and Mary Oliver teach us, when we are trapped in extreme cold, we come to value life.

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First Snowfall, A Moment of Grace

By Robin Bates | Published: January 27, 2013

For Mary Oliver, the season’s first snow fall raises existential questions and then answers them in its own way.

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The Comfort of Axe Biting into Wood

By Robin Bates | Published: January 13, 2013

In “Tinkers,” Paul Harding talks about the spiritual meaning of the aches and pains in a cold morning.

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Praise the Wet Snow

By Robin Bates | Published: February 12, 2012

In her poem about a gray October day, Denise Levertov senses “the invisible sun burning beyond.”

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Velvet Shoes, Walking in Snow

By Robin Bates | Published: December 27, 2011

“We shall walk in velvet shoes,” writes poet Elinor Wylie, describing the experience of walking in snow.

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What Can I Give Him? Give Him My Heart

By Robin Bates | Published: December 19, 2010

Spiritual Sunday Snow currently blankets southern Maryland as we enter the final days leading up to Christmas, making this the perfect time to print Christina Rossetti’s gorgeous poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”I love how it begins with hard and cold images and concludes with a simple gift of the heart. Although God is worshipped by […]

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Gripped by a Mind of Winter

By Robin Bates | Published: February 10, 2010

Snow is pounding us for the third time in two weeks and classes once again have been canceled.  Significantly enough, I have been forced once again to postpone Midsummer Night’s Dream.  “Where are the songs of spring?  Ay, where are they?” queries Keats (although he’s asking from the vantage point of autumn, not that of […]

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