BABY IT’S COLD INSIDE

If you’ve ever lived in Israel, then you know: It gets very cold here in the winter – indoors. With nine to twelve foot ceilings, and made from concrete and stone, these structures are meant to protect people from the heat, not the cold. So in the winter, when there are only a few hours of sunlight a day to stream in windows, the houses stay cold. And if you turn on the heat, which in most places isn’t central heating, but heaters – sometimes floor space heaters, sometimes heaters attached to the wall that sometimes function as air conditioners in the summer – the room heats up while the heater is on, but it doesn’t stay warm. You can’t get a base temperature – in many houses – that’s warm. 

Sitting with a heater is similar to sitting with a fireplace. You’re warm when you’re near it, but if get too close, you’re too warm. And if you get too far away, you’re cold again. And so, it’s common for me to be inside my house wearing sweatpants and warm socks and slippers, a long sleeve shirt or two or three and a sweatshirt and a sweater and a hat… because it’s cold inside. Maybe fifty degrees inside. Which is cold, when you’re in a concrete box! It’s like being in a cave. Which really serves us in the summer. But in the winter, it’s hard to get moving when you’re cold. And the tricky thing is, most of the time, as soon as you step outside: you’re warm! And the layers come off.

This morning when I went for a run, I wore only sweatpants and one tshirt and one sweatshirt, and honestly, even before I warmed up from walking – probably fewer than twenty steps from my front door – I could take off the sweatshirt. Because outside, today is a sunny, warm, beautiful, seventy degree winter day. The kind of day that makes you say, “Hallelu Yah! I can’t believe it’s January and I’m wearing short sleeves. What a beautiful day!” And yes, the rains will come, and yes I’ll go inside and be cold again. But the beauty is, I can always go outside. Weirdly, it’s honestly hard to remember that. When I’m bundled up and cold inside, and I want to put on another layer, it’s hard to remember that the remedy is to go outside. Not just open the windows or turn on the heat, but to take off the sweatshirt and go outside. 

Go outside.

Outside is where it’s pleasant! Don’t stay inside huddled under the blanket, hunkered down because of the cold. Yes, when you’re in the cold, you want to huddle and hunker. That’s the right thing to do in the cold. Unless being warm is just a few steps away. But boy can those few steps be a long journey when you’re feeling cold. And how weird is it that it can be hard to remember that I can get that warmth if I just step outside my box.

As I write this, I’m fully and completely aware of the metaphor this is for life. That staying comfortable in our uncomfortable zones because hunkering down and staying put seems like the right thing to do in the face of cold – whether it’s physical or emotional cold. But we’ve seen so many examples, in our own lives, that if we can just take those few steps outside our box, a whole other world awaits.