Winter Longings March 03, 2025

Winter Longings

Winter has been hard this year. It is long; it started in November. It is cold with temperatures in single digits quite often. It is days and days of snow and ice and rain and repeat… Mostly, I want to stay in and avoid the frozen tundra beyond the door. However, commitments to Communion of Saints Parish, the Ursuline Congregation, friends, family and sweet Angie offer me daily invitations to venture out. Angie is our beautiful, rambunctious labradoodle. She is a delightful break from the bleakness and stark landscape. When Angie is outside, she changes everything.

Last Tuesday morning our little curly-haired blonde convinced me that it might be possible to travel to the Lake for a walk. Here is how things unfolded.

Angie was a delightful partner as we drove through the white landscape of cold and snow to the frozen Lake on Cleveland’s North Shore. When we arrived, I sit in the car for a while appreciating the heat and wondering at the beauty of God’s earth, the bounty of the fresh water lake, the canopy of fir trees that cover so much of the walkway and all the animals that call Villa Angela, Wildwood Park home. This stark beauty invites my prayers of gratitude and appreciation for this “call” into the park.

I pull my blanket over me and begin to hunker down for this prayer time. Angie, however, sees it differently. She first seems content to stand at the back window; obviously overjoyed to find herself in this beautiful space. She walks around to all the car windows also full of doggy gratitude until a flock of seagulls lands near us. The car could not contain her excitement. Angie nudges me, barks at the birds and cries pleading for us to enter this space of God’s winter gifts.

As I open the door, the cold tempts me to continue my prayer—inside the car. Angie is already on the path, turning back to me repeatedly as if to say, “Look, look, there is so much to see!!!” This is what we find…

Angie and I walk over the beach to the lake. The lake is frozen in layers, revealing God’s touch in the depths of Erie, layer upon layer, reflecting that the winter beauty is the slow work of a creator’s master hand. A creator who is never finished with us. As Angie pats the frozen seaside with furry paws, I stand with her thankful for this opportunity. I am sure she feels too.

Not one for inactivity, Angie suddenly notices the seagulls again. They hover near the sand, hoping for warmth from the earth. Angie rushes toward them, running over the beach in joyful exuberance that makes me smile again. Though Angie is fast, she is no match for these avian friends, who toy with her and tease her as she runs her little heart out. She reminds me of the joy filled moments of life when I find myself surrounded by the beauty of many lake and oceans and creatures, great and small, reflecting the love of the creator for all of creation. Thank you, Angie, for giving me this time of reflection.

Angie is not finished with her moments of discovery yet; and so, neither am I. As she wonders down the tree-lined path, I follow. This road had once led to our Villa Angela Academy and my gratitude turns to all those lives, the students served at this High School during its over 100 year history and my happy years teaching here. Most of all I am aware of all my Ursuline Companions whose lives have blessed this ground with the years of grace-filled love in abundance. The trees themselves seem to whisper in celebration of the 175 years of Ursuline service in Cleveland.

My prayer is interrupted by Angie’s antics of chasing a squirrel up one of these majestic trees. The trees I recall were planted by our sisters and mark that journey taken by so many souls to the Academy from the Boulevard.

Our final gift of this glorious morning is the sunshine that now filters through the branches of these fir trees. The sun fills me with the warmth of the message that even on this cold day speaks of God’s love. It reminds me that all is well, that this walk is gift from this loving God to Angie and me. For today in these many moments, I had forgotten the cold, feeling embraced by God’s warmth, by the gifts of beauty and the memories of belonging to the Ursuline sisters who are such good stewards of this land. Moreover, of course, Angie who brought this gift to life for me and now for all of you.

With Pope Francis we pray for the mystery of creation, that together we can work to recover earth and hold it in love and care. Amen.

Sister Mary Ellen Brinovec