There is something about the first snow of the season; there’s the thrill of late starts, cancelled school, and snowmen. I love that little flakes of frozen ice can change the pace of modern life. People huddling up in their homes, some awakening their fireplaces, fewer cars on the roads – and most of those driving a little more slowly and carefully… for a little while life seems to slow to a snow’s pace.
I especially like to wake up to snow. Having gone to bed in autumn only to wake up to another world. A shiny, sparkly world, blanketed in drifts of white puff. So beautiful. It almost feels like a clean slate. A do over. A fresh start.
The apple tree in my front yard was a harbinger of change. A week ago, the apple tree still held a bouquet of Fall colors in its branches. But with this week’s snow, freezing temperatures and breezy conditions it now stands entirely naked, but for a few remaining Winter apples left for our neighboring birds. What a difference a week can make!
I remember one bitterly arctic winter day when I was at my mentor’s home, his partner Christine asked me to grab my coat and follow her, she had something she wanted me to see.
On this day, there wasn’t much snow, but it was terribly cold. Unusually cold for West Cascadia, with frost on every surface not yet greeted by the morning sun. As we walked her garden we added the morning’s food scraps to the compost pile and paused. She had a little mischievous “Christine” smile as she revealed that this is what she’d wanted to show me.
She invited me to look around her yard and garden. And for context’s sake Christine is a serious gardener; on a regular sized home plot in Seattle’s Maple Leaf neighborhood her garden produces most of the fruit and veggies they will need for the year, canning much, while still having ample to share… and I would be remiss not to mention her flowers, so beautiful, so abundant. But none of that was present as she I and stood in the cold on that particular day.
As I surveyed her barren garden everything looked cold, and hard, and bleak, and dead… basically lifeless. She picked up the pitchfork that always leans against the cedar fence; flipping over a tiny corner of the compost pile steam rose to meet the air. Like seeing one’s breath on a crisp morn, the compost pile seemed to be breathing. It was warm and it was alive.
This was what see wanted me to see… the compost pile. Yard waste and food scraps. While life may appear dreary, cold, and desolate the wise one’s invite us to look closer. They woo us to open up with curiosity to those places often unnoticed or unappreciated. Life in the seemingly least likely places. How long O Lord? This is Advent. This is what God does. When at first glance it all feels frozen over or lifeless look for the compost piles…
Peace, dwight
