Wednesday morning Cyndi got up at 5:30 AM to check the weather. It had
been snowing all night and it was cold outside, in the 20s. She tried
several different TV channels and finally found what she was looking
for: Midland schools were closed for the day. She wasn’t as happy
about that as I thought she’d be; closing school today meant having to
teach on some future holiday. She climbed back into bed and we stayed
there until 9:00 AM. It was great.
At 9:00 we both got up, since by then we were tired of lying in bed
trying to sleep, and got on with our day. We dug out our winter gear
and dressed to go run. We don’t get many opportunities to run in the
snow and we weren’t going to let this one get away.
Running in the snow is fun because it is so quiet. Especially on a
no-school day where there is very little traffic on the streets and
almost no pedestrian traffic anywhere. I know visitors from Montana
must laugh at our reaction to two inches of snow, but I don’t care. We
could live in Montana if we wanted to, but we don’t. I don’t want to
live in a place where tolerance for snow and ice is a requirement. I
would rather live where snow is rare. In fact, one of the reasons I
like winter weather is because I live in west Texas and not west
Montana. I like our winters, not theirs.
The Bible doesn’t have much to say about snow. I guess the early
readers were familiar enough with snow for Isaiah to use it to
describe what can happen to our sins: “Come now, let us reason
together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow.” (Isaiah 1:18) But it was rare enough date
the exploits of one of David’s Mighty Men: “Benaiah was a valiant
fighter who performed great exploits. He struck down two of Moab’s
best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a
lion.” (2 Samuel 23:20)
Bible writers didn’t get much inspiration from snow itself. Maybe they
would’ve spent more time considering snow if the holy land had been in
Montana instead of the Mediterranean.
It’s been cold all week. Last Monday I was at home babysitting the
home heater installation guys (a topic for another journal), writing
in my journal and editing old essays. It was 20 degrees outside when I
retrieved my backpack from my pickup parked in the driveway to get my
journal and pen. My pen worked just fine in spite of spending the cold
night in my truck. I called Cyndi on her cell phone to tell her my ink
did NOT freeze.
Cyndi said, “Oh no, your ink didn’t freeze last night? I’ll have to
get new criteria!”
She’s previously allowed me to go backpacking in the Guadalupes as
long as I promise to come home if it gets too cold. That is, if it
gets so cold the ink in my pen freezes. She knows I’m up there writing
in my journal and wouldn’t want to stay if my pen didn’t work. But now
she’ll have to come up with something else. Maybe I can convince her
that since my pen was insulated inside my backpack inside my pickup it
wasn’t actually that cold, but I doubt she’ll fall for that.
But cold or not, snowy Wednesday morning in Midland was a great day
for running. Cyndi left the house first for an obligatory turn around
Bush Elementary School with Lady the Running (yet aging) Labrador
before putting her in the backyard and heading out solo. I left a bit
later, planning to run an hour.
I had my iPod Nano with me and listened to a podcast from Mars Hill
Church in Grand Rapids, featuring Rob Bell, about being a peacemaker.
The open fields of unbroken snow at Kelly Park and at Stonegate
certainly felt peaceful and fresh, as if they were installed simply
for my enjoyment.
My route and Cyndi’s route converged as we approached the underpass at
Loop 250, so we ran and walked and laughed together for a few blocks …
that is, until I took a wrong step on a driveway and found myself
suddenly on the ground. Cyndi said she heard two distinct “whumps.”
The first was my left knee hitting the sidewalk and the second was my
left palm. It was quite a shock; it left me sore, but not hurt. I
jogged on home with only slightly more limping than usual.
I didn’t mind. All good things come through some sort of struggle. I’m
looking forward to more snow this weekend and another adventure in the
peaceful fields.
