Blanket of Snow. January 25, 2013

We finally did it! We received one full inch of snow, something that hasn't happened all winter. Being one who loves winter, I saw the falling snow and couldn't help but smile. It created a fluffy white blanket that covered the land. This blanket had a way of being a grand equalizer. Outside of the size of buildings, you can't really tell one neighborhood from the next; the rich from the poor.

James Joyce evoked the image of the falling snow at the end of his story, "The Dead," to remind us that the snow falls on all: "It had begun to snow...the snow general all over Ireland...It was falling on every part of the dark central plain; on the treeless hills... further westward softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves...it was falling , too, upon every churchyard on the hill...it lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones...the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling like the descent of their last end, upon the living and the dead."

These beautiful and poetic words written by an author whose writings freed him to see and experience the God beyond the constraints of culture, custom and even religion. The snow blankets ALL creating a beautiful unity where there is neither "gentile or Jew , slave or free, male or female. " Standing outside I can become a part of this blanket uniting me within every human being and together with all of creation.

On this feast of the Conversion of St. Paul we tap into the same Spirit that blinded Paul only to have his eyes opened wider than ever, "seeing" the plan if God uniting all people of all times in the Person of Christ. This is a gentle "blanket" of Grace that immerses us into the Kingdom so that we unite with each other,,,seeing the Christ in every human being. We create a "blanket " of human love and solidarity.
No wonder why I love snow so much. Buen camino. Padre