On the eve of Advent, I went with my sisters and my dad into the mountains behind my parents’ house in Montana. These are the forests of my childhood; these are the same trees that have stood tall, just minutes South of my backyard, for as long as I’ve been alive, and longer.

It will never fail that, walking through these forests on a blue-bird day no warmer than 20 degrees Fahrenheit, the air I breathe will form crystal clouds and the soppy grayish clouds in my mind will clear.

It isn’t conscious, and it isn’t always by choice. My sisters truly had to tear me away from my work and pull me into what was good for me (they always know when I need it the most). Nevertheless, hopping down from the passenger side of my dad’s pickup truck — just as I did when I was a little girl — and taking in that breath of air that freezes one’s lungs so fast one can’t help but cough, I felt clarity take over like an instinct of survival.

There’s probably something to that, neurologically, but it has to be spiritual too, you see, because clarity didn’t come alone. The feeling was accompanied by a sense of expectation, and even confidence. Better yet, a sense of hope.

It was as though there was a promise somewhere in those snow-fleeced trees. A promise that the suffering of now will not last. That evil can’t touch everything.
That this world is good, and I am good, and God is Good.