It is the time of year when darkness comes early and stays longer. I hear many people complaining about this time of year. The darkness, the cold, and the dangerous roads impose limitations on our time outside and our time together. I can appreciate these complaints and there are seasons of life that make this time especially difficult, like when you have toddlers in the house with no way to expend their endless energy. Secretly, though, I have always loved this time of year. I love to close my blinds in the very early evening, light candles, the fire, and lamps, turn off the outside world and spend hours in the warmth of my home with my loving family.
Fred Rogers wrote a newsletter called Around the Neighborhood: A Newsletter For People Who Care For Young Children. In the winter of 1999, the newsletter featured a series of episodes on Mister Rogers Neighborhood called Noisy and Quiet. In a letter directed to parents and caregivers, Rogers writes of the inspiration he drew from three sentences in a book called With the Open Door, My Experience, by Danish philosopher Anker-Larsen. He quotes those sentences,
The most comprehensive formula for human culture which I know was given by the old peasant who, on his deathbed, obtained from his son this one promise: to sit every day for half an hour alone in the best room. The son did this and became a model for the whole district. The father’s command had taken thought for everything – for Eternity, soul-deepening, refinement, history.
Anker-Larsen
The image of sitting in the best room in the house becomes a metaphor for Rogers of the power and necessity of silence and solitude for nurturing the spiritual life, for acceptance of the self, and for finding the courage to grow. Maybe in my attraction to a safe, warm home, a sanctuary in the cold darkness of winter evenings, I recognize the formative, transformative potential of these long, silent hours. Unable to go outdoors, we are forced to find the light within our hearts. I think our hearts are the best room in the house and in winter we can embrace the season by spending more time there.
Spiritual writer Thich Nhat Hanh repeats a story in several of his books. The story is simple. He left some work he was doing on his desk and went outside for a walk. When he left the cabin where he was staying the weather was sunny, warm, and calm, but as he was walking a big storm with strong winds and heavy rain blew up. He returned to his cabin soaking wet and knew just what to do. He closed all the windows, lit a fire, picked up the papers that the wind had scattered and sat quietly before the fire.
Like the image of the best room in the house, this story is also a metaphor for our spiritual lives. I think of this story whenever I find myself facing an internal storm of upsetting emotions like self-doubt, envy, anger, or fear. I always think of the cabin as a home within my heart, available to me at any moment. When I am hurt, I can simply withdraw to the safety of the home within my heart, close the windows, light a fire, and sit calmly before it. It is there in the quiet, calm sitting, that I glimpse the glow of a fire I did not light. The place deep inside my wounds where God’s love welcomes me and heals me, the place deep within where God will never abandon but always meet me in every moment of cold wintry darkness.
If we spend time sitting in prayer each day, opening our hearts to God, listening for God in good, troubling, or ordinary moments, we find the best room in the house more easily. The best room in the house becomes the home we carry with us in every moment of every day.
