What Have I Missed? – Ken Williams

One of my hermeneutics professors used the story “Agassiz and the Fish” to teach the principles and skills of interpreting biblical texts. Professor Louis Agassiz’, (1807-73), was a distinguished Harvard professor who taught his students how to ignore biases distracting them from reality, by painstakingly examining and reporting what they observed by daily examining a dead fish. Starting fresh each day, students discovered what they missed the day before. This principle helps me ignore my biases that distract me from the reality of what scripture says.

O.K. what about my daily life? What am I missing?

Nancy and I live in upstate New York where we have four distinct seasons. Who doesn’t love Spring, Summer, and Fall? We celebrate new life, growth, and the resulting Cornucopia of the upstate farms, vineyards, and orchards. The beauty of the Fall and early Winter are exhilarating times of family and friends gathering to celebrate traditions, and hospitality, and outdoor activities.

Even mid-winter is appreciated as a time for slowing down and contemplating life in Christ. It’s a time to thank our Father in heaven for providing our daily bread, warm clothing, and dwellings. It’s a time where it’s possible to write what we are grateful for, looking for what we have we missed as we attempt to keep pace in our busy lives. Whom can we help? Some upstaters don’t have sufficient food, warm clothes, and warm beds. January becomes a time for seriously considering what we can do to help our neighbors.

Love for the four seasons diminishes, and nearly dies along with the dead flora, in February and March. Prolonged cold day after day, regular snow showers, wind chills that drop the temperature well below zero, slippery sidewalks, and roads become discouraging. A common complaint is that the overcast skies create a dullish grey, gloomy, and depressing day. We celebrate the occasional break in the clouds that permits us to enjoy a short bit of sunshine.

I’m tempted to participate in the complaining but recently I asked myself, “what am I missing? Am I allowing the negative communal view of this season get me down and distract me from seeing the beauty that is still ours to enjoy?” By God’s grace alone, I realized I have a choice to use the “Agassiz and the Fish” principle in taking repeated looks at this season, seeking to see what I have missed, enjoying new discoveries, and thanking God for the beauty of his earth.

Professor Agassiz had his students rigorously examine a cold dead fish seeking to see reality, no longer distracted by their biases. Now it is my turn to allow the Holy Spirit to teach me to thoroughly examine the cold dead days of late winter in upstate New York to see reality, no longer distracted by my bias or anyone else’s. So, what have I missed?

The common complaint is that every day is grey, gloomy, depressing. O.K. people are correct, it is grey, but is grey bad and what other colors are there to see? As I looked around me, I saw the various shades of black and brown exposed on trunks and branches of the leafless, naked trees. Their skeletal silhouettes tower around me but skeletal? Dead? Reality wins as I observe they are hibernating. Their roots are asleep awaiting the sun that resurrects them from the dead. A closer look reveals some branches are amber; others are yellowish green. The evergreens are mostly dark green, but others are a golden yellow. Of course there is brilliantly white colored snow, decorating branches, bushes, and surfaces between sidewalks and roads. The occasional red berries the birds missed add a bit of color.

What do I feel? I feel the warmth of a neighbor greeting neighbor out for a walk. I feel cold! But embracing the cold instead of fighting it, accepting it for what it is, reminds me I’m still alive, and I’m grateful. It’s exhilarating, stimulating, it provides cleansed, fresh air to breath in and rejoice that I’m not only alive, but aware of Jesus’ presence. I’m alive in Jesus Christ and permitted to experience these extremes with him.

What do I hear? When the mechanical machines of trains, planes, and automobiles are silent I hear the hum of the breeze flowing through the barren branches and the sounds of opening our patio gate crusted in snow. I hear the scrape of my snow shovel cleaning our patio cobble stones. I hear my breathing as I work. I hear the squeaky crunch of crushed fresh snow under my boots each step I take. I attempt to hear others sounds but the sound of silence dominates, it’s tangible and cherished, and missing the other seasons.

Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone enables me to love my life in this beautiful season!

Ken and Nancy Williams served for some 25 years in pastoral ministry, and then almost another 20 years serving and mentoring other pastors.  With the heart of a pastor Ken continues to write and blog from upstate New York where he and Nancy live close to their grandchildren.