I’m looking out a window with a view of the tallest mountains in my state. A few days ago, more than two feet of snow fell in this area. Today, you’d never know it. Yesterday brought 50-degree weather, with more of the same expected today. As a result, the mountain is not so much snow-capped as snow-dusted.
This is “shoulder season.” Winter’s over. I’m at a cross-country ski area with barely enough snow on the ground to justify purchase of a trail pass. Trees are barely budding, certainly not yet blooming, as though they’re suspicious of foul weather that might be hiding around the corner.
I treasure this time and place. There’s an austere beauty here right now. I wouldn’t have said that forty years ago, freshly arrived from Florida to a new home in New England. I’d have been waiting for the season to make up its mind. I’ve since learned to take shoulder season on its own terms.
I’m on this brief road trip upstate during Holy Week. Shoulder season indeed: a time of waiting that’s solemn and hopeful all at once.
I’ll be on yet another road trip on Good Friday – a short one – to participate in the day’s somber liturgy at the chapel of a small Catholic college that is a couple of months away from closing due to financial pressures. The place and its people are dear to me, and the impending closure breaks my heart.
The students and their teachers know that Good Friday won’t be the last word, of course. They are people of faith. They know that they are only days away from celebrating the Resurrection.
Even so, they’re in the middle of their own shoulder season, spiritual as well as physical. It’s a time of upheaval and uncertainty, not yet resolved. It’s asking a lot to expect them to embrace the season on its own terms.
What better time for Holy Week?
The universal Church will endure even as the college closes. Each person in the chapel will soon be worshipping Christ as part of a community somewhere else. But that’s for later, as yet unseen, like so much else this Holy Week.
A great celebration is only a few days away. We’re not there yet. On Friday, we’ll venerate the Cross together in our shared shoulder-season moment. I’ll pray with the students, and I’ll pray for them as well, that they’ll discern beauty and hope right where they are.
Ellen Kolb 