December 19, 2005

Greetings from the peak of a stellar dendrite,

They say that there are no two snowflakes alike.   I have become numb from shoveling snow and I have had no interest in the individuality of the flakes.

When the sky is gray and low, and the ground is covered in snow, it can be a depressing landscape.  Nothing seems to be moving and the bushes and trees are lifeless black sticks wedged in the white.

Piled high in the driveway snow is a burden.  It is inconvenient and hostile and unmoving.  It is cold.  It makes me cold.  It can be dangerous, each step a slippery risk, an icy invitation to injury. 

I ache with the effort of fighting through snow.  Why do I care whether the flakes are all the same?  I am busy, so much to do this time of year, let me get this snow out of the way so I can get things done.

The sun comes out and turns the snow iridescent.  It becomes peppered with children in bright colored snowsuits, carving the snow into playscapes.  Snowmen, forts, snowballs, tunnels and sculptures.  The snow is made different by the light and the spirit of the children.  And so am I.

At the heart of a pile of snow is the snowflake, an individual crystal of water that has formed through a minor miracle of circumstances.  They say that no two snowflakes are alike, that the intricate lace that makes their form is unique at each creation. 

When the snowflake is gone, it leaves behind a brief residue, and then becomes part of the atmosphere, and perhaps at some point, forms a new, unique, snowflake again.  Does this go on forever?  I wonder.

I have been caroming through my days, intent on some fuzzy purpose on the horizon, and the people around me have blurred into crowds of white and gray.  I have been snowblind.

This week I met a man who has a small observatory in his backyard.  His hobby is taking pictures of galaxies thousands of light years away from here.  He shared with me some of the beauty he's captured and I was in awe.  It stopped me for a moment.

Each picture was brilliant in color, tendrils of stars forming a lace of light across the ink black of space.  Galaxies spinning into one another, forming different shapes, explosions growing each collection of light further outward.  Every cluster of stars formed a pattern as unique and complex as a snowflake.

Last night a light snow fell, large soft, powdery flakes from the sky.  I stood out in my yard, and even in the chilled temperatures the flakes were only on my skin for a moment.  Long enough for me to see them, and take in their shape, wonder what was next.

This morning I looked up to see a clear sky filled with stars, gathered around the moon set just to the west of me.  At my feet the stars are reflected in the snow, tiny sparkles of light, urging me to look closer, to look up, to look around.

My life is filled with gifts that I shovel out of the way, busy with my own purpose.  There are people in my day that until I look closely, will appear as one of many flurries of people.  It is only when I take time to look closely that I learn that they are as unique as a snowflake, as complex and as beautiful as a galaxy of stars.

If I could give one gift to you for Christmas it would be the moment you need to see the people, the snowflakes, in your life.  So much of what God intends for us is hidden in that moment.

Hope this finds you crystallizing,

David

Copyright (c) 2005 David Smith