My iPhone read six degrees....I looked out the window and powdered snow was blowing off the rooftops and car roofs. It reminded me of one of my favorite movie scenes...the cold and barren city street outside the pool hall in The Last Picture Show. The only thing missing were tumbleweeds blowing in the wind. I told my wife that I was going to the store for....anything....just to get out in this wonderful weather and beautiful landscape. There's a little dramatization in these words....and it's for a reason. This is as good a time as ever to bring back this post from late 2016:
Winter At Dusk
The living room-dining room-kitchen and breakfast room in our 109 year old house are arranged in a circle. It's five minutes to midnight and as I write my wife is walking fast in circles....around and around. On the last pass I asked her to read these two sentences I had just written but she put her hand up and said..." I can't right now. I only have five minutes to get my 10,000 steps in!" Earlier she asked me to take her iPhone as I walked the dog. Isn't that cheating? She said that she was just kidding but I know someone who attached his Fitbit to the dog as it ran around the yard.
Oh well, we all have our peculiarities. A few hours ago I looked outside and it was beginning to snow.....the first snow of the season. Dusk was setting in and there would be less than an hour of light left. I hurriedly put on my boots, grabbed my truck keys and told my wife that I was going for a drive and would not be long. She knew what I was up to. The scene outside, bleak and dreary to most, was too beautiful to pass up.
Now, I can enjoy summer and we often go on car trips just to see the autumn colored leaves but the chill of gusting winds over barren hillsides, particularly at dusk as a blue hue settles over the valleys, is the most beautiful and calming of sights....and feels. I love the brisk walk to the vehicle, pulling the coat closer to me as my breath is visible. A chill like this, even frigid weather, makes me feel more alive, for one can become lost in a daydream on a sunny summer day or walk aimlessly while creating thoughts in the fall but one cannot but become alive in the winter chill. One can admire the creation of God in a sunrise or sunset or in the multi-colored grandeur of a flower garden but one actually converses with the Creator in the starkness of a blistery winter evening.
The leaves have not only fallen but have disappeared by now and I can see what was hidden over the summer....houses with warm families inside....buildings and shacks.....rocks and streams that I never knew were there. I was now on our parkway...sipping a McDonald's coffee. I'm sure that even Thoreau would have stopped for a latte, had it been available to him, before heading off to Walden Pond
The clouds are ominously dark and fast moving over a slate gray sky. In weather like this there always has to be some place to go....someplace warm....with friendly people inside....and maybe a fire....an atmosphere perfect for genuine conversation. One does not waste a beautiful evening like this with a trip to Walmart. One saves that trip for the sun...or the darkness of night. No, the gusting winds, bare trees and earthen colors are a wake-up call that one is alive, that God created a reality behind the beauty of autumn leaves or the dazzling colors brought out by the sun.....and one cannot see His warnings if one only gazes at the creation and does not feel it. There is an analogy here if you will consider it. God is warning us....and has been warning us for upwards of a half century....but we seek the sun....and its warmth....and shun the cold....unaware perhaps that the most powerful storms on earth begin in the warm water of the tropics....the warm air rising....and storm clouds growing....and thunder and lightning following.
Darkness came quickly and I texted my wife that I would be home in fifteen minutes. I know that she will hear the text for the iPhone would mostly assuredly be in her pocket as she finds something to do where she has to walk.
"And when He broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God; and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel took the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar and threw it to earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake..." Revelation 8:1-5
Winter At Dusk
The living room-dining room-kitchen and breakfast room in our 109 year old house are arranged in a circle. It's five minutes to midnight and as I write my wife is walking fast in circles....around and around. On the last pass I asked her to read these two sentences I had just written but she put her hand up and said..." I can't right now. I only have five minutes to get my 10,000 steps in!" Earlier she asked me to take her iPhone as I walked the dog. Isn't that cheating? She said that she was just kidding but I know someone who attached his Fitbit to the dog as it ran around the yard.
Oh well, we all have our peculiarities. A few hours ago I looked outside and it was beginning to snow.....the first snow of the season. Dusk was setting in and there would be less than an hour of light left. I hurriedly put on my boots, grabbed my truck keys and told my wife that I was going for a drive and would not be long. She knew what I was up to. The scene outside, bleak and dreary to most, was too beautiful to pass up.
Now, I can enjoy summer and we often go on car trips just to see the autumn colored leaves but the chill of gusting winds over barren hillsides, particularly at dusk as a blue hue settles over the valleys, is the most beautiful and calming of sights....and feels. I love the brisk walk to the vehicle, pulling the coat closer to me as my breath is visible. A chill like this, even frigid weather, makes me feel more alive, for one can become lost in a daydream on a sunny summer day or walk aimlessly while creating thoughts in the fall but one cannot but become alive in the winter chill. One can admire the creation of God in a sunrise or sunset or in the multi-colored grandeur of a flower garden but one actually converses with the Creator in the starkness of a blistery winter evening.
The leaves have not only fallen but have disappeared by now and I can see what was hidden over the summer....houses with warm families inside....buildings and shacks.....rocks and streams that I never knew were there. I was now on our parkway...sipping a McDonald's coffee. I'm sure that even Thoreau would have stopped for a latte, had it been available to him, before heading off to Walden Pond
The clouds are ominously dark and fast moving over a slate gray sky. In weather like this there always has to be some place to go....someplace warm....with friendly people inside....and maybe a fire....an atmosphere perfect for genuine conversation. One does not waste a beautiful evening like this with a trip to Walmart. One saves that trip for the sun...or the darkness of night. No, the gusting winds, bare trees and earthen colors are a wake-up call that one is alive, that God created a reality behind the beauty of autumn leaves or the dazzling colors brought out by the sun.....and one cannot see His warnings if one only gazes at the creation and does not feel it. There is an analogy here if you will consider it. God is warning us....and has been warning us for upwards of a half century....but we seek the sun....and its warmth....and shun the cold....unaware perhaps that the most powerful storms on earth begin in the warm water of the tropics....the warm air rising....and storm clouds growing....and thunder and lightning following.
Darkness came quickly and I texted my wife that I would be home in fifteen minutes. I know that she will hear the text for the iPhone would mostly assuredly be in her pocket as she finds something to do where she has to walk.
"And when He broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God; and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel took the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar and threw it to earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake..." Revelation 8:1-5
