Quiet

March. Happy birthday to my sister Kathleen this month (18!). Congratulations to Erik and Rachel Van Dyk, our dear friends, on the birth of a healthy girl, Olivia Maria. We're so thrilled for them! Here are some pics of Jacob from our last trip to NJ (already a month ago) as well as this week's snowstorm up here in NY. Our most recent comedy of errors is that our passenger side window doesn't stay up. Trusty old Jetta, giving out on us! So, soon, if it is not fixed, we shall be reminding ourselves of Steve Martin in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" when he drives across the country in the back of the pickup truck, icicles frozen from his nose...

This time of year is one of introspection and hibernation. The resurrection joy of Easter is still a few weeks away, and we're still in this quiet, inward-looking time of Lent. Somehow, being snowbound is a lovely living metaphor for the quiet, the snowbound, the soul-searching of the Lenten season. It's often hard to get through these months, these days, but the quiet is good for us, isn't it? It's good to be alone with yourself once in a while. As my friend Wendell Berry says,

"Best of any song is a bird song in the quiet. But first you must have the quiet."