I please myself with the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer. To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture, which was never seen before and shall never be seen again.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Emerson was one of the founding fathers of a literary movement known as “transcendentalism.” At the root of the term “transcendentalism,” we find the word “transcend,” which means to be separate from or beyond, to surpass or excel. Emerson did not invent transcendental philosophy, he was a product of an older philosophical idea that had been born in the European enlightenment and embodied in the work of the theologian/philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant emphasized the need for belief in God, which by nature cannot be proven or disproved, as a foundational piece of a rational or scientific worldview. We cannot understand the ultimate reality of our existence until we at least acknowledge the role of the transcendent, which goes above and beyond the observable and accounts for human logic and intuition. We see in Emerson the fruition of a union between European transcendentalism and a high spiritual expression of New England Puritanism. Emerson and American transcendentalists made an attempt at resurrecting the better graces that had fallen from these two fading philosophies. He is spiritual without sacrificing logic, analytical but able to see the big picture with an intuitive awareness that helped him to understand and appreciate the beauty of God’s creation. Emerson seems tied into the routines and rhythms of nature while maintaining an intellectual, rather than superstitious, system of creating meaning.
Emerson has become known to most of us as a footnote to the memorable story of his eccentric protégé, Henry David Thoreau, and as a credit of inspiration to the American poet laureate, Walt Whitman. Thoreau took Emerson’s appreciation of natural beauty and his sense of careful attention to daily routines to a new height during his lonely sojourn at Walden Pond, a place Emerson also enshrined in poetry. Whitman crafted his poetry with a sublime and subtle sense of beauty that often echoes the ideas found in Emerson’s skillful prose. We find in transcendentalist writing an attention to and acceptance of the variety of creation and human experience. Their peace comes in the awareness of a greater reality that transcends the discord that seems to afflict much of our existence. Proverbs 3: 5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,” an unusually transcendentalist statement for an Ancient Hebrew. Scripture shows us that God has worked out the ethics and truth of the Kingdom of Heaven to transcend the pits and chasms of human sin. Christ taught us to love our neighbor, to apply to each person the same open spirit of appreciation that Emerson had for the seasons.
We could spend all winter wishing it was summer; we could go on wishing that the world was like it used to be, or we could put on our warm clothes and look at what God is doing in this season. Behold the beauty of winter for its own austere and dormant quality, do not stack up the green fields of spring summer next to the hush of a snow filled forest, so that one has to be “better” than the other. There is, right now, in nature and in this church, “a picture, which has never been seen before and will never be seen again.” We need to learn about the transcendent truth of God’s kingdom and how it is alive and active in the here and now. The blaze of fall colors reminds us that God is at work even when things die. The passing of this years leaves to make way for new growth in the spring. We should celebrate with joy the glory of each season. The transcendence of God makes all the difference. Winter in the church is not a season of dormancy, as it is in nature. Between Advent and Lent we will experience most of our “life” between the fall of the leaves and the blossoming of spring. Being alive with God’s creative power in the midst of a frozen land is a powerfully accurate metaphor for the position the church occupies in the world. Those outside the new covenant of God’s grace cannot sense the transcendent action of God in the world, they see only frozen ground and bare trees.
I invite all of you to be transcendentalists this winter, to live in the awareness that God is acting in our lives. Have an “attentive eye” to see what God is doing in each moment. Let spiritual awareness hold you up and keep you warm so that you can see the beauty that is inherent in all God-created hours.
Grace and Peace,
Rev. Mark
