Snow covering

The snow is coming down here in Mount Sidney just across the field from I-81 mile marker 233 or so. It began snowing here at about 4:44 this afternoon and has steadily increased in volume since then. It is now 7:20 and we may have an inch or inch and a half on the ground. Really pretty. When I see snow I am always reminded of scripture. KJV scripture, of course. What else would I know? Snow is mentioned 24 times scattered from Exodus to Revelation, but only in 14 books of the Bible. Snow was not generally a part of the normal every day vocabulary of the writers of text that became our bible. I'm sure most people living in biblical locations knew of snow, but many or most would not have experienced snow. I found the word snow stumped my interpreter in the Butere Church of God in Butere, Kenya. He had to be helped by the village chief. Funny.

Most biblical references to snow are in consideration of it's color of pure white. Only a few reference snow in consideration of its cold. And none reference snow in consideration of how it blankets everything and hides the imperfections in all it covers. And that is what always seems to set my mind in motion. How that something so gentle, so insignificant as a snow flake, so quietly, and yet so quickly can cover the landscape to the point where all of the shapes and colors begin to blend into one glistening, incredibly beautiful carpet of pure lack of color altogether and loss of individual shape. Earth's scars fade, man's work is swallowed up. Patterns and grids and boundaries and divides and ownership are blended in together until it all belongs to the eye. From horizon to horizon, white, nothingness, pathless, directionless. Individuality gone. Sameness takes charge of everything.

Scars covered. Limits disguised. Dark pits buried. Stains whitened. As snow. Soft, gentle, pure, weightless, perfect miracles of snow flakes, bound together and stuck together to the point that it takes tools of steel and machines of fire to clear it away.

Psalms 51.7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

We open presents in the morning. Hope you saved some. Or did you not dream of a white Christmas? Same on you, oh ye of little faith. We are only 40days behind. What is 40 days in biblical terms? Nothing. A whisper. A breeze. A snowflake.