Against the grey sky, drifting through leafless branches, white flakes fill the air. My heart still leaps at the surprise. What a pretty idea: design water molecules to freeze and cohere at certain temperatures and slip gently toward the ground. The beauty of a snow-covered evergreen forest stops us in our tracks. Winter’s crystalline cold sparks in sunshine and quiets a starry night. Ahh, visible glory puffs out of my mouth.
Creator, You cooked up science and stirred in art for our Earth-home. There seems to be no end to the complexity and wonders uncovered by physicists, oceanologists and astronomers. Artists of all kinds keep taking our breath away with their inspired innovations.
Born in Your image we are explorers, experimenters and finger painters smearing beauty all over the place. When it snowed we invented snowshoes, skis, snowboards, snowmobiles and parkas. We carved ice sculptures and danced on figure skates. We built toboggans, igloos and snowforts.
Your creation is exquisite and at the same time, ruthless.
Awesome snow-capped mountains don’t care who suffocates in an avalanche. Lacy flakes turn highways into scary obstacle courses and break trees across essential electric wires. Death and destruction arrived in Buffalo, NY last week, thanks to excessive snow.
We react to such reality like naive kindergarteners suddenly annoyed when things don’t go our way. We groan at the first snowflake and grumble about messy commutes, irritated by that bad driver in front of us on the way to work. Will the power go out again? Will the basement flood?
Caught in the tug of war between Jekyll and Hyde we choose mercy’s beauty one minute, ugly criticism the next, lunging between sweet communion and bitter division. We poison loving community with spouts of envy, resentment and greed. Sometimes we talk as if, like trees and chipmunks, we are at the mercy of Nature’s impersonal laws.
Good news! There stands a daily, hourly offer of a Divine Life-partner who leaves us free to choose. Resent the day's cold winter darkness or celebrate its snowy sparkles.
