Snow Days (01/09/2024)

I was raised in the south. We didn’t get snow. I recall the day it did snow in Waycross, Georgia. Everything shut down. Grown men in their 40s and 50s were outside like children trying to make snowmen out of the inch of white powder on the ground. Awe was in the air that day. Snow was something I saw on television and dreamed that one day I’d experience. And eventually, I did, when my family returned to the Midwest when I was 16. One needs to exercise prudence in making wishes.

While I have lived in the Midwest since 1966, I never tire of being graced by a beautiful snowfall. And a “snow day” is like a holy day of obligation for our family. When the kids were still at home, I’d load them into the family car, and we’d carefully drive around the town, take in the wonders of the snow-covered structures and trees, marvel at how the wind sculpted the drifts in yards, and then we’d end our adventure at the Dairy Queen for Blizzards. My children indulged me, it is true.

This morning has been declared a snow day in our small city. The kids will sleep in as will the bus drivers. Hopefully, the youngsters will get outside and enjoy the myriad of things one can do with snow, in snow. I will spend an inordinate amount of time on my porch, taking in every drift, every snow-covered bough. And I will thank the LORD for the gift of awe, the power of wonder.

What does this have to do with our faith journeys, I bet you are wondering, especially if you’ve always lived where there was snow? Everything. One of the seven gifts of the Spirit is awe. Today with advancements in technology and innovations such as AI, we can become suspicious, even leery of the world’s gift, of the LORD’s power and presence spread before us. And this is especially concerning when we recognize that what makes us Christian is our faith in the gift of Jesus Christ, Son of God, who came among us through the power of the incarnation and who gave His life for us upon a cross so that we might have life, who died and rose from the dead, defeating sin and death. You see, in order to believe this wonder, we must be open to awe.

I pray that we and our children and our children’s children will remain open to the gift of awe. That we will exercise it often. And I pray that the next time we behold the crucifix, our awe will rise to the top, and will take in the wonder of the depth and breadth of the LORD’s love for us this moment in time forever made visible. And I pray that we will rest lovingly in Him in whom we live and move and have our being. And I pray that we go forward with courage and determination always knowing that the Spirit is with us, helping us to build a world on the foundation of His love, gifting us so that we might allow His love to transform us and we in turn transform the world because of it. And that should fill us with awe.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.