[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Storm

It started Thursday evening; by the time I got out of choir practice at 9, 
the flakes were falling, fat and heavy, just this side of freezing rain. We 
knew it was coming: "heavy snowfall warning in effect" said the radio. I'd 
done grocery shopping for a couple of days.  We'd brought forward our date 
with the Christmas tree people from Friday to Thursday afternoon and the 
tree sat safe and dry in the shed. I'd made up a list of indoor tasks to 
accomplish: bake bread, do laundry, clean out cupboard under kitchen 
sink... I meant the day after the storm to be a peaceful, productive one. 
Major snowstorms are good for that.

Sometimes we do get stormy snow -- snow blasted from the north or from 
across the lake, snow that hurls itself at your face, stinging your cheeks 
and getting up your nose. But that's not what I think of when I think of 
snowstorms. Snowstorms are very gentle affairs; the sky quietly opens up 
and almost diffidently dumps a major amount of the white stuff. One of my 
favourite memories of all time was of one Christmas Eve when I was 
something like 16; we got a foot of snow in one day. I remember being out 
after dark, digging out the front walk and watching the flakes catch the 
light of the street lamps.  (For those of you who don't get true winter, 
there's a peculiar light to snow falling in a town at night, a warm, smoky 
yellow, hard to describe but unmistakable, intimate, mysterious, just as 
the electric blue of snow at dusk is mysterious, but transcendent. A person 
can spend a lot of time contemplating what serious snow does to light.)  I 
remember that warm light reaching into the corners of my soul and that 
sense of profound contentment as I looked Love in the face.

We talk about snowstorms to indicate their nuisance value; a dump of a foot 
of snow is going to scramble traffic pretty badly and call for some major 
digging out. But in fact, real snowstorms are the opposite of stormy. They 
seem to absorb all noise, all sudden movement, een the bare possibility of 
violence.  They are extraordinarily peaceful, even as they're inexorable. 
It's a peace you can listen to or ignore. You can't argue with a snowstorm; 
you might choose to endure it, seeing only the fact that it isn't what you 
asked for and is going to get in the way of what you had planned. Or you 
can change your plans, put your desires on hold, and open your arms and 
your heart to the deep quietness, the beauty. That's generally what I 
choose to do.

This is what the love of God is like, I thought, as I stood in the falling 
flakes on Thursday night.  It's not something we asked for, and it's not 
something we can stop happening. In that sense, it is a storm. But it's 
also a storm of great stillness, peace, and gentleness, surrounding us with 
beauty if we want to look for it. The difference, of course, is that this 
snow is cold and the love of God surrounds us with warmth.

On Friday morning we woke up to 36 centimeters -- that's 14 inches -- of 
perfectly pristine whiteness. Working off and on, it took the three of us 
most of the day to shovel out. I made bread, cleaned cupboards, tended the 
houseplants, did laundry, polished my guitar, baked biscotti, sang to 
myself, content in the knowledge that love surrounds me, and I've healed 
enough to feel its warmth again.

******************

I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.