{Snow} Scattered Beauty

It is snowing.

Not big fat flakes.

Not small shapeless flakes.

Flakes that are both tiny and perfect. Focus hard enough and you can see that each flake is like an impeccable, flawless spur, built of crystals and magic and perfect beauty. One flake is enough to make us marvel. One flake. One tiny little flake. And then, maybe, you realize that your eye is adjusting like a computerized miracle to be able to focus on that tiny flake, and then you let your eyes readjust and you see that the entire world is flurrying with millions of these self-same flakes; there are too many to inspect each one. Some of the beauty is going to be unnoticed by human eyes forever.

But it's still beauty.

It's fluffing down on us and blanketing the world in white. Large and broad and all-encompassing to show the purity of our God and how He views us through Christ's sacrifice. The snow is also tiny and small and not-a-one-is-identical to show that God cares enough to imagine each design and then create it. Does it matter to God that we won't see the flawless creation that is every single snowflake? Not really. The small ones pile on top of one another in a glorious display of perfection, salvation, mercy. Snowflakes are glory-screamers.

I wish we would take the time to realize that magic is real; that is, the magic of the fact that snow falls, or rain drops, or winds blow. They don't have to do that, you know. From a young age I always had a sneaking sense of living in a fairy-world when it came to creation. There was something about "the fragile beauties" that was extremely...thoughtful. Someone was conjuring these things out of pure pleasure. Someone was spreading beauty and it wasn't just because "that's what snow does." Then I read the essay on "fairyland" by Chesterton and understood:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” 

-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Exulting in monotony. Who is patient and wise enough for that? But maybe the thing is, monotony--like snow--becomes more beautiful the stiller you are. That everyday grind you do? Have you tried adjusting your lens and seeing the fragile beauty of the day-to-day? To the casual observer, a world covered in snow might seem perfectly ordinary. (I hope not, but it could be) But to the person who knows we live in Fairyland with a Magician who breathes out every flake of snow to a form peculiarly His own fancy...that snow isn't a natural disaster that makes them late for work. That snow is a miracle and an allegory and a love-letter written from the heart of the Divine to His glory-displayers who are fuddy-dudding around like they weren't created for an incredible destiny.

Take a minute to look at the snow.

Remember the mercy.

Praise the One who imagines Beauty and scatters it over the land.