The stark beauty of winter

 Just a few shots taken on the way to Mass on Sunday.  After having experienced nine years of life in Tucson, Arizona, I came to the conclusion that I really am in love with the cycle of the year and the changes that take place with each season.  Although I love some seasons more than others, and each season has its pros and cons, I find beauty in every one.

Black and white photography seems to highlight what I love best about winter: the stark contrasts, the play of light and dark, the silhouetted filigree of branches against a white or steely sky...

 I don't care much for being cold.  And I don't like the mud we have in lieu of snow here in the South.  But I love the stark, somber landscape.  I will have had my fill of it, however, by the end of next month, and my heart will sing at every evidence of the coming of spring.

 We are hanging in there with our first week back at school.  I feel much better today after a good night's sleep, and the kids did well with the things they worked on today.

I have been looking into alternative therapies (read: diet, supplements, vitamins, etc.) for Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, which Gemma seems to have.  Her doctor suspected it, but he said there wouldn't be any need to do anything much unless she was in a lot of pain.  As it stands, she wakes up with pain in her left knee or right ankle now and then, sometimes limps for a little while first thing in the morning, and has a tendency towards rashes and inflamed eyelids (just like a sty now and then).

It is, of course, an auto-immune problem.  It seems to have started with the enormous amounts of antibiotics they had to give her back in April when she seemed to have some kind of resistant bug.  Within a month of the last antibiotic, the rashes began, and then then the leg pain.  I am praying that with a good, healthy lifestyle it will not become degenerative, and that her flare-ups will become very rare.  I believe in the power of prayer, and that she could end up free of it one day, if God permits, and so there is always hope.

Strange, but in my mind, the stark beauty of a winter landscape somehow ties in well with discussing Gemma and her health problem.  Beauty in a barren landscape; sweetness in suffering--both can be overlooked, but discovered by those who know that the Cross is our salvation, and that it was the shedding of the blood of our God that made our redemption possible.

Anyway...enough musing on profound truths.  Back to folding laundry and thinking about dinner...