Snow

Okay, the snow's mostly going now, here at least. I know it's been disruptive, dangerous for some, but I love snow. It makes me feel like a child again (not that it takes much). And it's just so beautiful.

So here's a kind of meditation on snow - and kind of on God - that I wrote 3 years ago in another snowy patch:

Snow meditation

Snow – this symbol of purity and grace, a bridal raiment,
Shining robe of righteousness upon the undeserving earth.

A miracle – billions on billions of snowflakes,
Each unique – like us.

Some see holiness and God like snow –
Cold, unliving, unfeeling, freezing out life,
Destroying crops, disrupting life and
Causing men to stumble as they walk.

I see snow like holiness and God –

Joyful, playful, life-enhancing,
Ready to be sculpted by small eager hands

Beautiful,
Like love, covering a multitude of sins and filth and ugliness
(even Croydon is lovely on a snowy day)

Gracious,
Settling alike on poor and rich, great and small,
Clean and dirty, worthy and unworthy

Transforming,
If only for a brief hour, a day
Like a fleeting smile,
A glittering diadem placed upon the brow.

Kind,
Covering like a mantle, a fur-rich blanket,
Like wool upon sheep

Self-sacrificial, incarnational,
Coming down to us from heaven
Mixing with our muck and mud, our feet and hands,
Consenting to be trampled, mangled, muddied, man-handled,
Flung about, destroyed.

We wreck the snow, despoil it, fling it, dirty it
But it stays silent, like the sheep before the shearers
And though it fades and melts and turns to muddy slush
It will return.

And when it melts, it leaves us clean.