Bright Winter Mornings

The best thing about a heavy snowfall is the next morning. The sky is clear and the low winter sun has yet to melt the snow from the trees, but it’s bright enough to cast long shadows across the unblemished, sparkling white canvas. We’ve had several mornings like this recently. Once, when I was outside shoveling the snow from the roof of my car, I spotted a bright red cardinal perched on a limb just over the fence. Highlighted by the sunlight, he couldn’t have been any redder. I was mesmerized. He remained at his perch for several minutes before taking flight. I hardly moved as long as he was there.

For me, the beauty of winter is the sharp contrast between the white snow and the few colors that remain in the landscape – mostly deep blue (when the sky is clear) and tiny spots of cardinal or berry red. Of course, there are many more winter days when low clouds drain the color away, leaving only a few shades of gray, but those clouds often bring a fresh coating of snow. The magnificent simplicity of bright winter mornings is absolutely worth all the cloudy days necessary to make them possible.

I suppose that’s a metaphor for life. An author friend of mine once observed that

most of our lives are just “stuff.” It’s only a few significant moments here and there that provide the material for any kind of story. Even exhaustive biographies of famous people that run on for a thousand pages have left out the pedantic details that account for most of their lives. But it’s in ordinary routine that the ingredients for significant moments come together. And if we are paying enough attention, we’ll notice when time is suddenly infused with eternity. We’ll stop whatever we are doing to marvel.

It’s also important to acknowledge that those incomparable moments of wonder don’t arise only out of ordinary circumstances. They also emerge from the stormy passages of life and the dark moments that threaten to debilitate our spirits. This is why the most alive people are those who have honestly faced their mortality, either because of danger or disease. It’s why hope is strong among individuals and communities who are rebuilding from the ruins of tragedy.

“Give thanks in all circumstances,” the apostle Paul counseled the believers at Thessalonica. And to the disciples at the church in Rome, he wrote, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Life is full of stuff. A lot of it is uninteresting. Some of it is frustrating, discouraging, or even tragic. Some of it is challenging, gratifying, and occasionally thrilling. But all of it is in the hands of God, who mixes the various ingredients of our experiences to create moments of truth, love, and joy. And because God is always at work, there is always hope.

You can divide human beings into three categories. There are the chronic complainers, like people who grumble about how much snow we get in a typical winter and refuse to enjoy the season’s most beautiful days. Then there are the eternal optimists, like those who romanticize winter as though scenes of freshly fallen snow just magically appear without causing any inconvenience. And finally there are those who embrace all of life, at its worst and its best, in the faith that God is always working creatively to bring about good. These are people of hope who know both how to grieve and how to rejoice, and who are aware enough to know when to stop and marvel at God’s handiwork.

©2014 by J. Mark Lawson