Bright As Snow

Alaska in late fall and early winter is dark.  We go to work in the dark, and we return home in the dark.  Our kids go to school in the dark, and it’s dark again by the time they’re getting out of school.  The trees have lost their leaves, the vibrant colors of earlier fall are long gone, ripped from trees and bushes weeks ago by storm winds.  The skies become heavy with clouds, blocking out much of the sunlight which might have been there otherwise.  The rain comes seemingly without end.  Rain, wind, and darkness.

This year the darkness has been getting to me.  Maybe because it’s been darker than normal.  We’ve had storm after storm after storm with very little break in between.  At times the darkness becomes palpable.  Suffocating. 

Or maybe the dark is getting to me more this year because everything’s been darker this year.  Lots of stress and worry.  Lots of trauma and loss everywhere we look.  Lots of fear and anxiety, and hate.  We worry that we’re not safe.  We’re not sure what to believe anymore.  What’s truth, and what are lies?  We’re not able to do a lot of the things that have been normal parts of life up until this year.  We don’t gather.  In fact we’re encouraged to isolate.  I think this is the first time in my life that isolating has been encouraged as a safety precaution.

I think isolation breeds darkness.

I don’t know that I’ve experienced a year before that has involved quite so much fear and anxiety.  People are worried.  Unemployment is up.  Businesses are struggling just to stay open.  It’s hard to pay bills when you can’t find work.  Hard to keep food on the table.  Hard to maintain a home. 

More darkness creeps in.

Concerns for safety are everywhere.  At the community level, as well as the global scale.  We don’t feel safe.  At least not as safe as we used to feel.  We particularly worry about keeping our kids safe.  Safe from dangerous situations, dangerous drugs, dangerous people. 

Darkness thrives in fear and distrust.

And there’s the other darkness, too.  Darkness of spirit.  Darkness of memories.  Regrets, hurts, lies, suspicions, loneliness.  Our lack of hospitality and generosity.  Our selfishness and greed.  Our fears and resentments.  Our hatred.  The darkness we carry within us.  And these too block out much of the light as thoroughly as do storm clouds. 

But this morning we woke up to the season’s first snow!  It’s always an exciting morning.  By March, and even April or May some years, waking up to more snow doesn’t illicit the excitement of the year’s first snowy morning.  The first few snows each season are greeted, at least in our house, by welcomed enthusiasm. 

“Look outside!”

“It snowed!”

“Yeah!”

There’s a magic to that morning.   The world is suddenly transformed.  Instead of the heavy darkness to which we’ve become accustomed during the previous weeks all is suddenly new and bright.  Instead of the rain slapping down on the windshield, white flakes drift and float, landing softly for a moment before being whisked away.  There is stillness to the world.  Peace.

I’ve been thinking about snow today as I’ve been out shoveling a path through the backyard to the chicken coop.  I love the snow.  After weeks of darkness it’s a pleasant change to have to squint against the brightness of the world.  I actually had to take a break to go find my sunglasses. 

And as I worked at clearing the path to the coop, I got to thinking about darkness and light.  And about snow. 

We were raised believing that we could ask to be washed clean of all of our mistakes and darkness.   That not only would God listen to this request, and grant it, but that God actually delights in doing this for us.  That in a moment, we could be transformed from our present state to become new.  Once again as bright as snow.

I still believe that. 

I still believe that it is God’s desire, and certainly God’s capability, to transform us.  To transform our whole world.  To rid us of darkness.  Taking away our fears and worry, our stress and anxieties, our traumas and losses, even our hatred and our loneliness.  And make us once again as bright as snow.

The darkness has been getting to me lately, which isn’t really normal for me.  I think I needed the snow this morning, as a reminder.  That although we may be in a season of darkness that season will not last forever.  The darkness will ease off, and light will return.  Just like it always does.

I always love waking up to the first snow of the season.  The reminder that darkness will not forever cover the Earth.  The reminder that even in the darkest time of the year, in the blink of an eye, without advanced notice, God can cover all that darkness.  And that even though things may appear bleak, God has everything under control, and has the capability to transform everything.  Eliminating the darkness.  Making everything, once again, as bright as snow.