FEELING S.A.D.?

ARE YOU suffering from 'Seasonal Affective Disorder'? S.A.D., as it's known, is a description of that kind of depression - sometimes severe - which is linked to the lack of daylight in winter. During winter people get up and go to bed in the dark and often travel to and from work in the dark. It's the time of year when the sun never rises very high in the sky, and lights are on for much of the day. I suspect that everyone is affected to some extent and we all feel particular sympathy for those who are heavily affected, those for whom winter is debilitating.

And yet the seasons themselves are under attack. Intense street lighting penetrates the darkness of the night sky. Planes and ships bring us fresh produce all the year round. Cheap flights give us summer breaks in winter. Global warming brings out flowers and insects at improbable times. Flattening out the differences between the seasons, I suspect, makes it more likely that we shall be affected by what is inescapably wintry: commuting in the dark, low levels of daylight.

The Church plays her part in trying to off-set the darkness of winter. Christmas and Candlemas are feasts when we celebrate the triumph of light over darkness. We don't install light boxes in church - boxes to capture the brightness of summer daylight to cheer us up - but we do speak of him who is light in our darkness and we do seek to encounter him in word and sacrament.

As winter gives way to spring, we have the season of Lent - an old English word describing the lengthening - 'lent-ing' - of daylight. Christ, who is our light, shines into the darkness of our lives and we submit ourselves to something which is a bit like a spiritual spring clean. Lent this year starts in the last week of February and, as usual, presents us with a joyful opportunity - if only we will take it - for real change and growth.

Lent is often - and rightly - seen as a time for personal change and growth, a wilderness experience in which, like Jesus, we are led by the Spirit and ministered to by angels. It is also a time for the whole People of God, congregation by congregation, to deepen our discipleship and holiness. One of the most inspiring experiences in parish life is when whole congregations experience a spiritual awakening in Lent, walk the way of the Cross together and come alive with Christ.

The time when we most fervently proclaim Christ our Light is in the Easter liturgy when the darkness of the night is penetrated by the glory of the resurrection.

Meanwhile we battle on through the winter.

May God bless us as we prepare to keep a holy and godly Lent.

+ Andrew Ebbsfleet



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