For we who are of the wintry sort, clearly are not strengthened by a spirituality of the charismatic summery type. In the end, those of us who are persons of a wintry sort, do have a faith, but it is nurtured in a different way. It is rooted biblically in a different tradition of a long line of people. That certainly bears out in my own experience. Namely, that those people who feel strongly the absence of God can be, paradoxically, those who speak most clearly and experience most deeply the reality of God.
Absence can be a positive thing.
One can see that in human relationships. Life is always coming and going, and in the coming and going the real love emerges. I only started to know my country when I left it, in a way. By leaving my parents and my brothers I also was able to return to them in a new way. There is this ongoing coming and going, and I think, in fact, eventually life is always coming and going.