Snow

I live in the coastal South and we’re more famous for massive hurricanes, flooding, high humidity, and extreme heat. I (fondly?) like to call us the armpit of Texas. A few weeks ago, though, we were inundated with snow. Not the icy crust that we’ve sometimes had in the past. We actually had about four inches of lovely, powdery snow.

I’ve been to Colorado and seen snow before. But I forgot how thickly it quells sound and movement. I forget the utter stillness that a layer of snow instills on a landscape. The chickens were shut in with a heat lamp in their house. The dogs roamed with me, picking their way delicately through the unmarred layer of white. The damp blackness of naked trees stood out in stark contrast to the pure whiteness. It was beautiful. Peaceful. Unique in our time and place.

School was cancelled. Roads were treacherous for those unused to driving on ice. It was a moment of forced calm. Imposed inactivity. It reminded me that there is another part to life that is not endless obligation and constant motion. The quiet and leisure allowed my mind to focus on details. Little things I normally would have been too much in a hurry to see. Like the tiny ice crystals surrounding a hole in the grass. The smooth perfection of undisturbed snow. The heaviness of a branch covered in mounds of snow and ice. The texture of the pond as it froze in the wind, with little crosshatches and undulations. It pointed, as all things do in life, to a creator. This beauty is not clinical, not dry science and accidental. These are images of love and favor by someone who adores beauty and forges relationship through it.

I wish our lives had not devolved into the disconnection and busyness that they are. I hope that going forward I can resist the swift current of this world, that sweeps me into frenzied action, and find a way to let it freeze, as the world was frozen that morning. Stop the speed, force the quiet, and find that beauty, forging that relationship with my creator with increasing intentionality and with an eye for the little hints of His desire for my time and attention. Amen.