January 22: Snow, a Delicate Veil, Thankful Wednesday

When I got finished teaching this evening at the university, it was snowing.  A misty, fine snow.  The kind of snow that falls when it's arctically cold.  Even though I was on a busy college campus, students hurrying to class and cars circling for parking spots, the late afternoon was quiet as Christmas Eve.

As a life-long resident of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I'm allowed to complain about snow.  It's my inheritance.  But I'm not complaining tonight.  It was beautiful and peaceful.  I don't think I take enough time out of my day to really appreciate all the beautiful things I encounter.  E. B. White sort of touches on this in Chapter XI of Charlotte's Web:

On foggy mornings, Charlotte's web was truly a thing of beauty.  This morning each thin strand was decorated with dozens of tiny beads of water.  The web glistened in the light and made a pattern of loveliness and mystery, like a delicate veil...

That's how Charlotte saves Wilbur's life, with the beauty and mystery of nature.  If we all took a little time each day to look around, I think we'd all see little miracles.  Spiderwebs in the fog.  Icicles the size of thunderbolts.  Snow, fine and powdery.


This Wednesday, I'm thankful for the snowfall I walked in this evening.  I'm thankful for the silence of it.  The white of it.  The delicate veil of it.

Saint Marty has to say, it was "Some Snow."

Look around.  You never know what you might see.