So, it's snowing outside, tiny infrequent flurries that are making small lace trimmings on the edges of yards, leaf piles, and a fence or two. It's the earliest I've had snow in Chicago, but it hardly counts.

Tonight the mercury will take a one night only (for now) slide to deep regions it has not seen in literally a month of Sundays, somewhere around 15 degrees. And the wind is biting, bracing, inducing the return of the CWT, the "casual winter tissue" that everyone must carry around for sinus drainage.

And just like the dusk, the chill is settling...

I sit here in the comfort of my office, not quite cozy so as to keep the bills down, but not frigid by any means. I sit and I ponder the whirlwind that has been the month of November so far....

Sixteen days,

three walks in the woods,

two sermons,

one funeral,

one nonagenarian diagnosed with cancer who two days later broke her hip who lies uncomfortably in the cramped/noisy room of her intermediate care facility (close enough to the hospital for Medicare to cover the daily transport for radiation) and complains goodnaturedly to me and unpleasantly to the staff,

one nonagenarian who suffered a spiral fracture of his femur requiring a steel rod implant and now suffers the indignities of our Veteran's Administration health care system but doesn't seem to mind because it's nothing compared to what he went through in WWII or to losing his wife of 62 years last spring,

one more nonagenarian whose storm door whacked her walker, spinning her around causing a bad knee sprain so that she sits at home in her recliner reading her large print Bible and showering her neighbor/nurse and her daughter-in-law with gratitude and love when they come to see to her and tend to her needs,

one on-line acquaintance depressed and contemplating suicide at 40 because life just isn't turning out as he planned who I cannot help but with my prayers,

one more parishioner whose mother has survived delicate surgery and who struggles to be joyful in a world that hasn't known much of it,

one party to celebrate a successful year for a community youth program that struggles to make budget and find a new leader,

one stewardship Sunday and annual dinner in connection therewith,

one choral concert sung for a local HIV/AIDS housing facility,

one lovely and congenial dinner with a new young friend who showed me how to use the used IPod I just bought from him and shared a bit of his difficult journey to today, whose boyfriend sent me a lovely email later in the evening thanking me for being his guy's 'religion' pal,

and one hundred pages into the new Jan Karon with only 6 flinches so far at the simplistic, gentle pelagianism of her Southern quasi-Episcopal, quasi-Evangelical theology, and 6 moments of tight-throated joyful emotion she crafts masterfully with only hints of schmaltz,

You know, it feels like winter...moments of beauty, stings of bitterness, sought after warmth, a sense of things slowing down, of natural ends and with dubious, yet oddly dependable, promises of future renewal.

Tomorrow promises to be bone-chilling and bright, with gusts back up to their dangerous levels of 4 nights this month...a day when it will be great to be alive, and great to be on the inside looking out...

Friday will be a day to prime the pump, for the wells are so quickly running dry again...Saturday a day of challenge as disagreeing Presbyterians gather to talk (and hopefully, listen)...Sunday we proclaim a carptenter executed for sedition as Sovereign...I've always loved our oxymoronic faith...

In a week, I wing away to give thanks with family for two and a half days...and I have much to be thankful for...and so much to be concerned about...and return to a time of preparation, of hope, and even joy.

I suppose it is the discontent of my winter...but not the despair or the desperation...and just a few good nights' sleep hence perhaps the sun will rise on a joyful harvest day...so I have been promised....so I believe.

But for now, I will rest...and learn I-Tunes.