i’ve never seen eight inches of snow before …

 

Southern born and bred, i’m used to doing a snow dance for a mere

 “wintry mix” of one or two inches, which is enough to keep all school buses below the Mason-Dixon sleeping soundly in their sheds.

But this blanket of white out my Midwest window might just convince me to do winter further north … it is unabashed beauty, this.

it fell all night, while we slept, quietly hiding our cars and burying our daily to-do list.  we scooped it in buckets off the walk, and  one wild boy ran into it with tongue outstretched, rolled in it like powdered sugar, left a three-foot-long snow angel print for the mailman to step through.

And it hit me, fresh:  how this snow,

– a metaphor in white.

Given in excess, so that even the realm of the gutter is filled to brim.  sprinkled on our shoulders as we stare up wondering how.

i stood long today, squint-eyed from the blinding white, and i prayed that grace might melt into my skin.  might permeate … through fur of hat and folds of scarf and three pairs of socks … for Oh, my soul, how i want that white.

to be as snow … what wonder, that.  and yet it is promised.  it awaits all of those who dare believe in what is not yet seen … like one who feels for certain that  Spring will come even in the dreary cold of winter.