I miss the snow this year. All the cold air is staying out West and Washington DC is just wet a dreary most days. Maybe February will bring a pattern change. For now, I miss the cold and snow.
Call me crazy if you wish. I know that not everyone likes snow but it is an amazing work of God. He takes a barren winter landscape and creates it anew. I can almost hear the Lord saying, “Behold, I make all things new!”
In the modern world we often walk past the glory of God hardly noticing the gifts that He provides every day. Tonight and tomorrow I don’t want to miss God’s gifts. It is true that these gifts come along with weather-related hardships, but maybe—just maybe—God can get a few of us here on the East Coast to stop for just a minute, rest a while, and behold His glory.
Getting “snowed in” provides a wonderful chance to become reacquainted with our family and even with our very selves. Just looking out the window and marveling at the snow as it falls with hypnotic and calming steadiness can be a prayer, if we think of God who sends it. Wherever you are, don’t walk through life and miss the glory of God!
In the Book of Sirach there is a beautiful and poetic description of God and the majestic work He creates even in the “dead” of winter. Enjoy this excerpt from Sirach and reflect spiritually on the glory of God in winter.
- A word from God drives on the north wind.
- He scatters frost like so much salt;
- It shines like blossoms on the thornbush.
- Cold northern blasts he sends that turn the ponds to lumps of ice.
- He freezes over every body of water,
- And clothes each pool with a coat of mail.
- He sprinkles the snow like fluttering birds.
- Its shining whiteness blinds the eyes,
- The mind is baffled by its steady fall.
- (Sirach 43, selected verses)
Enjoy this video, which reminds many of us of the joy and wonder of a snowfall like some of the ones we experienced when we were young.
Don’t worry, the March for Life is coming up and I think it has snowed at some point during the March almost every year for the past several!
I think senator Chuck Schumer’s speech at the inaugeration was the first big freezing blizzard to blow through Washington D C this year. Becareful what you wish for.
I can certainly sympathize with you Monsignor (at age sixteen I moved from the Canadian prairies where a very frozen, and dry air winter was common – to the south east of Canada which had winters that tend to be just above freezing and very humid. After 40+ years I handle the humidity better but not as well as those who are born and raised here.) but, I keep reminding myself that God has a plan and it’s better than mine.
I reflect on the east coast snowfalls last winter, seems Boston was the most shown for severity, and wonder if He might show you how much more he could bury the entire east coast of North America to please you.
He can.
How I love the snow! I love how the landscape changes, and how, because of the wind , hills and curves appear all over, and never the same way twice. I love the whiteness of it, the newness of it, the “let’s begin again” of it. And I love the quiet of it. I love the soft hush that comes over everything, how everything noisy seems muffled, how quiet seems to fall from the sky. I love that what may be a boring scene after many years looking out the same window is transformed into something new and interesting.
I love the muffled scrape, scrape sound of a shovel on a cement sidewalk. I love the flakes falling in big clumps, and the three inch high line of snow on banisters and tree limbs, so carefully and delicately piled on one another, until a hand or gust of wind comes along and sweeps it away. I love the way God gives man beauty in every season, and the wonders of His marvelous works.