pondering the winter storm

We got hit with another "Winter Blast '08" this week (two snow days worth of winter weather for the local school systems)--snow, ice, sleet, freezing rain, sleet, ice, snow, etc, etc, etc.

Today was the first day that I really "got out" in more than just a run to the market or over to the church kind of way.

I was struck once again by the beauty of the ice and snow covered trees and brush. I found myself pondering the beauty of dangerous things. When I see ice accumulating on the trees outside of my front window I know better than to travel; it's dangerous. And yet, in spite of the danger, I find myself thrilling at how beautiful it all is.

I was reading from Thomas Merton's journals the other day and he writes:
Today was the prophetic day, the first of the real shining spring: not that there was not warm weather last week, not that there will not be cold weather again. But this was the day of the year when spring became truly credible.
The morning got more and more brilliant and I could feel the brilliancy of it getting into my own blood. Living so close to the cold, you feel the spring. And this is man's (sic) mission! The earth cannot feel all this. We must. But living away from the earth and the trees, we fail them. We are absent from the wedding feast.

Thrilling at the first day of "real shing spring" or at the danger of ice accumulations that have been dusted with snow like confectioner's sugar, I have to agree and steal the words of Fr. Merton: It's our job to feel the brilliancy of it all, to thrill at the beauty. To miss that, to forget that, to be so busy that we don't care about that, is to miss out on the wedding feast.