Winter

It is winter here.  Every morning I shuffle out to the car early and start it up before hurriedly dashing back inside for some coffee and the last bits of breakfast.  Sometimes I have to spend extra time outside brushing snow off the windshield.  I don’t really mind this at all.  Sometimes I’ll actually drag the windshield-brushing time out as long as possible.  The cold air makes my face tingle and I feel glad to be alive.  The fact that I’m outside and perfectly fine in sub-freezing temperatures (when the cold kills so many other things) makes me feel clever.

Usually winter in Ohio just means cold weather; we don’t really get much snow at all in Columbus.  I think this is unfortunate.  There is something to be said for the still ambience that falls with the snow, something to be said for making filthy things white (if only for a brief respite).  Snow is beautiful in its elegant crispness, in its intricate uniformity, and in the fact that it bestows its beauty on everything that it covers. 

Snow is beautiful for about 5 minutes.  And then people throw sand and salt at it in a hurried frenzy, they paint it with grime and turn its once elegant white crispness into grayscale sludge.  The ambience is interrupted with the sound of sliding tires and metal crunching into metal, the sound of curses as idiots rear-end each other at a stop sign on their way to work.  People can’t seem to handle snow’s beauty very well; almost everything they do destroys it.

Because of those things, snow reminds me of God; of his intricate splendor and of his penchant to purify things.  The thing is, God’s grace (unlike snow) doesn’t melt, and it is always ready to pour out and wash away the grayscale sludge that keeps pushing its way into our lives.  And it is only God’s grace–not cleverness of mine–that allows me to stand before Him and manage to stay alive.

Enjoy the snow!