A Beautiful Pain in the Butt
Snow.
It's a beautiful pain the the butt.
The older I get, the more I dislike winter. The cold has my mind fantasizing about a tropical beach with a hot sun and a cool salty breeze. No shoes, no shirt, no problems.
But alas, I live in a place that gets cold and gets snow. And when we get snow, like this week, it can bring annoyance. I have to shovel out our driveway, deal with crazy people at the grocery store who don't seem to have enough food to last them two days, and in the last few years 'snow days' became extinct, traded for 'e-learning' instead.
But snow also brings something else, if I'll have it.
And while I could write about sledding down the neighbor's hill, or building snow forts, or even the pleasure of four-wheel-drive, thats not at all what I am referring to.
Snow brings a blanket of beauty. A calm silence.
As snow covers and gives the impression of decluttering, it allows us to breath a bit more. The sun, even on a cloudy day, is brighter when snow coats the ground. And snow takes in the noises that generally keep us lulled and distracted.
If you happen to have snow on the ground, it might be worth it to bundle up and step outside and listen. True quiet is a rare thing in our world. The constant hum of some machine is the white noise of our lives. Even on a normal day in the woods there is noise. But on a day where snow is falling, laying thick layers of white on the ground, it absorbs the sounds, and you can get close to touching silence.
We often avoid silence. Noise is normal. It's comfortable. Silence is scary. Too much can drive a person a little crazy. Silence forces us inside of ourselves, to hear the person we've often hidden away. It forces us to open our hearts to the Spirit in ways we normally drown out. We are afraid of what we might hear.
While I dislike the accumulation of salt on my truck and scraping ice off of my windshield, I am trying to gratefully accept the gift of beauty and silence in snow. I don't want to waste it, hiding from it and scorning it. I want to take it for what it is, and use the opportunity to breath deeper... and listen.
What is a gift you find yourself wishing away? How might you take advantage of it before it melts away?
If you have snow, this may be a call to you to go out and listen to it.
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Cody Buriff, Director of Resource Initiatives
