I've just come through a wonderful weekend. We were treated to a storm which dumped almost 27" of snow in New York City, and probably around 12-18" where I live in Central New Jersey. While I am not a big fan of snow or winter in general, it gave me the gift of a weekend of being home with my wife and three children.
Let's talk about the beauty of the world just after a snow storm. The highlighting of every branch of every tree, the soft smooth blanket that covers the ground, and the sense of undisturbed beauty when the woods behind my house looks as pristine as it must have 1,000 years ago. (the picture is out across our back deck).
The other wondrous gift that a snow storm brings is the silence that blankets everything like the snow. That perfect moment when everyone is inside, there are no planes in the sky and no cars on the road (no bass pounding from someone elses suped-up sound system). There is stillness there that is unlike anything else. I don't particularly like winter, but that part I love. Some people, though, can't stand the silence.
A friend Laurie, a real lover of the outdoors, email me a newsletter she receives from a group called Eco-Justic Ministries, called "Eco-Justice News" (full text is found at http://www.eco-justice.org/E-060210.asp. I encourage you to read it all, but these sentences touched me:
"We can't know God when we're too busy to think, when we're being bombarded by sound, when we never allow ourselves the quiet time to feel deeply. We need space away from the noise and busyness to experience God."
There I stood, in my yard in the middle of a snow storm, knowing that as the snow fell like God's own sound absorbing insulation, and all I heard was the sound of my breathing and the wind in the branches, I was closer to hearing God's voice whisper to me that I had been in months, maybe years. I know I can pray amidst the noise, I do it on a regular basis. The question is when am I able to hear the answers?
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