[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Shovelling

It's not often I find myself vigorously shovelling snow on a 
beautiful mild April day. In fact, I can't recollect ever having done so.

But last winter's heavy snowfalls are taking time to go away. Next to 
my house, in a particularly shady spot, the snowblower had piled the 
stuff hip-deep, and even after a couple of weeks of real thaw, there 
was still a significant mound of dirty white.

I could just let nature take care of it, I suppose, but with the 
crocuses blooming and gardening only just realistically in sight, it 
seemed right to go out and *do* something. Last winter was a 
difficult one, and I'd sooner get rid of any reminders.

So on with the clogs and gloves; I grabbed a garden spade and went 
off to attack the snowbank. It sat right next to our shared asphalt 
driveway, which opens up into the paved space where my neighbours and 
I park our cars. So it was just a matter of transferring the snow 
from bank to asphalt; after that, the sunwarmed black pavement will 
take care of the problem.

I shoveled and tossed, shoveled and tossed, working for a bit and 
then taking a break -- it's warm work, shoveling snow in mid-April.

The real problem emerged as soon as I got to the main block of the 
pile. Time, rain, its own weight, and repeated refreezing had 
condensed the top five or six inches into a hard pack I could easily 
walk upon, and I am no snowflake. Attacking it with the side of the 
spade was like beating up rock. I even tried jumping on it. No luck.

The only solution I found was to dig out the softer snow from under 
the pack, flinging shovelsful onto the driveway, undermining the hard 
stuff until it broke off in big chunks that I could manhandle out of the way.

I've known from experience that being undermined is far more 
effective than being attacked. Attacks I can fend off; being 
undermined is insidious and much more dangerous, especially when the 
undermining is in the name of love.

It hadn't occured to me, until I dug out from under the snow crust, 
that undermining could be a positive force, a force for transformation.

I find in general that when I try to attack my bad habits -- for I am 
very much a creature of habit -- they rear up on their hind legs and 
fight right back. But can I find ways of undermining them? Can I dig 
under them to the softer underlay of where they started, and perhaps 
deal with them with compassion instead of anger? with gentleness 
instead of righteous wrath? with acceptance instead of shame? We 
don't get better by hammering on our problems with brute force; we 
get better by slowly digging out from under and letting the sun's 
warmth, the warmth of love, do its gentle work.

And could I do this in dealing with others as well?

It's worth thinking about.

Meanwhile, I spread the old snowbank out over a large, warm area and 
let the sunlight and warm fresh air get at it. A day later, it was a 
remnant. This morning, it's gone.