tim’s thought property

We now have snow.
The snow is steadily falling outside, making it’s new home on the lawns and streets, as November finally gets dressed. For the longest time, there seemed to be a distilled tension in the air. The leaves were all fallen, and the sky was a continual roiling grey, just slowly generating the snow that would eventually drift down this evening. And however much I may have romanticized the winter months, I still believe this time of year to be one of the most beautiful of seasons.

In the midst of sorting through various negatives of the last year, and somewhat sorting through my clean clothes; I had decided that enough was enough and I should go for a walk. Confirming my suspicions, I peeked outside to see that the snow was gently piling up all along the roads. I went downstairs to find some sort of winter boots, only to be left with the less-than-ideal steel-toed Dakotas that I had worn as a factory worker. They, sadly, had such a poor sole, that I would slip on the slightest patch of ice, many times nearly falling flat on my back. So, with nothing else, I put them on, and trudged away at the prairie tundra.

It was enjoyable being the only person out walking in the neighbourhood. The snow gleamed in the yellow streetlights, the wind blowing it from the north. I walked along, on the route that I used to go running, and just had time to savour. The wind was cold, yes; but there was not a chill in it yet. I walked along, smoking my pipe, and pondering the immediate.
Walking into the wind was a bit of a chore, until I turned around. I saw the swerving nature of my footsteps, the only ones on the sidewalk, and made an effort to straighten them out. I found it easy to do so, looking back on my steps, to keep them straight in line. But with my back to the direction I was heading, I could see no obstacle in my path, nor could I see the sights of the field filling up with snow. I knew there was an analogy in that, but I didn’t go searching for it.

At one point, I kept my eyes on a streetlight, looking at the illuminated flakes. For a moment, it was only me in the world, the rest of the population was nowhere in sight. I, smoking my pipe, like a young C.S. Lewis, feeling the draw of a snowy night, lit up by the giant suspended light. And not unlike Lewis, I could easily see how such a simple but elegant thing could lead to the eventual creation of a whole epic story. I keep finding that I am drawn in by light and colour, and this moment reminded me of that.

I passed by the Catholic church, and down the street connecting to my part of the bay. My boots found a couple of ice patches without any problems. Upon approaching my driveway, I found that the drifts had already mounted higher since I left. I saw the three snow shovels lined up alongside the house, and realized that what I had to do. Now, if I had entered the house, I would have been told to shovel. If it were up to me, I’d rather not do so. But, being outside and of sound enough mind, I decided to start the first shoveling of the season.

Now perhaps it was my inherent Catholic sense of duty or my inherent Mennonite sense of humility that led me to do so. But in all honesty it was selfishness. I decided that instead of being asked, I’d do the work myself, so as to avoid the usual father/son defiance of doing the chores of the house. If I had done so on my own, then outside of me using twenty minutes doing some heavy lifting, I would have avoided the angering and inevitable command to shovel the driveway. And I did. I don’t even think my dad knows that the driveway has been cleaned.
Being so used to cleaning the driveway at the middle of a snowfall (as to avoid the heavier lifting at the end of one), it was no problem to still be the only one on the street outdoors. Tomorrow morning will no doubt bring the scraping and noise of many neighbours rising earlier than desired to clean their driveways. I’m not a morning person by any stretch, and growing up it was always dad rising before he went to work to do the heavy labour. Being one of the “three boys” or “indentured servants” always meant that Saturdays and weekday afternoons were the designated cleaning times.

Inside all of the surroundings and bustle, I had found much more deeply, the beauty of things. Now being raised in a Christian home has lent itself to my spiritual development, sure; but stopping my busyness and just being, and observing, led me to see an aspect of GOD. There is so much that has been but in front of us, so much depth to each day. Each season is something so much more than we think it to be. There is something so deeply imbued inside these things, light reflecting on snow; the illuminated sky from the cloud canopy and city lights; the wind drawing in and moving around of snow; all of these things to me reflect such a deeper beauty.
People always seem to complain that GOD is not evident in the world and point to all the suffering to prove that point. I don’t think he had ever intended to control everything like a highly detailed machine. On the same stretch, I don’t think that he made the world to sit by and idly observe, and watch how us humans can make a mess of things. Like a parent watching a infant take in all that’s around him, I believe that GOD reacts the same to us. We can be in awe of so many small things, or even larger objects of beauty and wonder; and we can also have a very painful and hard time in the process. A infant can be fascinated by the jingling of car keys, and will undoubtedly cry in pain at the process of teething. It is necessary to go through such things, the pain and joy of life; and like the parent is to help along the infant, so GOD seems to help us along in our growth.

Regardless, I have now been brought back to the realities of winter. The utter beauty of it all, to be admired from afar, or the sore reality of the work involved; both have given a sense of realism to this season. In my last two years, I’ve been absent from the bulk of these Prairie Winters, and now it’s the first time, in a seemingly long time, that I can experience it from start to finish.