White wake-up call

One of the advantages of living in a northern climate is Nature’s winter alarm clock for sleepy children and teens.It’s been a few years, but I still remember the routine. They’d go to bed begging for an extra afghan on top because it was so cold. When morning came, they’d remain cocooned under their multiple layers unless somebody whispered two words and opened the curtains to reveal the truth.

It snowed.

Plus, it happened on a no-school day. Can life get any better? Suddenly, they were awake, eager to rush through breakfast (mean Mom says, “No corn flakes, no snow flakes”) and dig out those snow pants, caps, gloves and mufflers. A white world meant snowballs, snowmen, heaping snow for your own three-foot sledding hill, and making a snow fort. Oh yes, maybe scraping a few sidewalks to be “helpful.”

The only downside was Mom, who kept an eye on the clock and temperature and called them in before they turned into snowmen. Then it was hot chocolate while the wet snow gear tossed in the dryer for another stint in that wonderful white world.

Our first significant snowfall of the winter came yesterday. But those kids who sprang from their blanketed cocoons to revel in its wet whiteness don’t live here any more. They’re grown up and on their own. Now, snow means getting a shovel out to clear their own walks before anything else. Then, if it’s not a work day, maybe a trip to the ski hill.

Yesterday, as I scraped the driveway and sidewalks, I wistfully remember seeing snow through a child’s eyes. I have a picture of my son and daughter all bundled up, faces toward the sky, tongues out, trying to catch a flake on their tongues. Learning each snow flake is unique, they also tried to examine them with a magnifying glass. But their breath melted the fragile flakes before that happened.

The only member of the family not too excited about snow was Aug the cat. He made no secret of disliking having to hop through cold, wet stuff to his favorite guard station under the bird feeder. Who knows the mind of an animal, but snow clearly impaired the smells along the route of his daily territorial policing.

Of the Bible’s 14 references to snow, one of my favorites is in Isaiah 1:18:
“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord.
Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
When we ask God for forgiveness of our sins, a blizzard of mercy pours out from Heaven, covering the dirty stuff in our lives.

And even though most of the world doesn’t experience a “white Christmas,” there’s a lot of symbolism in those Currier-and-Ives snow-time scenes. For isn’t Christmas about the Divine storm of mercy? And of Jesus coming to a sin-polluted world, spreading the soft blanket of pure hope?