All kinds of weather

The torrential downpour of last night and this morning has made everything feel very wintry, even though its only April. The sun is coming out now, so the evergreens outside are sparkling freshly and the sky has glimpses of blue poking out from grey. It's a wondrous sight. To celebrate the arrival of winter, I decided today to listen to all my favourite wintry songs. I made a playlist of many of them on YouTube, and here is one of them, complete with magnificent footage from David Attenborough's "Planet Earth" series - Sigur Ros' "Staralflur":

But why, I can imagine you all asking me, why would you celebrate the arrival of winter? Isn't winter something to be saddened by? Shouldn't we celebrate the arrival of spring, or summer?

Well, first let me say that I love winter in Melbourne. It was rough for me to return to a particularly cold one last year after six months in the tropics, but, once I'd adjusted to shivering much of the time and wearing multiple layers to cover all extremities, I found I quite liked it again. But I also have to say that, of all the things that I most missed about my home (aside, of course, from friends and family) was the quirkiness of Melbourne's seasonal variation. You see, you just don't get seasons in Borneo, except for wet and...wetter. I wrote many poems about the rain, because that was just about the only distinctive feature of the weather, apart from the heat. But here, well, there's so much weather to talk about, and to marvel at. I'm reminded of one of my favourite C.S. Lewis moments, from the start of "That Hideous Strength":

"That's why Camilla and I got married, " said Denniston as they drove off. "We both like Weather. Not this or that kind of weather, but just Weather. It's a useful taste if one lives in England."

"How ever did you learn to do that, Mr. Denniston?" said Jane. "I don't think I should ever learn to like rain and snow."

"It's the other way around," said Denniston. "Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it is you grown up. Noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children - and the dogs? They know what snow's made for."

I love that quote, because, apart from the discomfort extreme weather can cause, it can so often be a wonderful example of the glories of God's creation - which makes me suspect that, when our world is renewed, it won't be a world without seasons. It may in fact just be a world where the seasons cause no discomfort, so we can wonder at all their changes and all their particular beauties without pain and suffering.

I may be wrong, of course. But for now I intend thoroughly to admire this winter and all the beauties that it brings. I hope my fellow Melburnians can bring themselves to admire it with me.