For eight years of our ministry, Carol and I pastored churches in the southwest edge of Michigan.
We lived three miles north of the Indiana border - just above South Bend - and Carol pastored a congregation about 17 miles north of where we lived and I pastored. What that means in a very roundabout way is that we lived a scant 20 miles from Lake Michigan and we were in the lake effect snow belt area.
While it might be cold enough for snow 10 miles south of us and 10 miles east, we were very likely to receive the bands of snow coming off Lake Michigan. They really did come in "bands." We lived in Niles and we might receive 10 inches of snow sometimes. Buchanan - the town about five miles west of us - might get nothing. But usually, the entire Berrien County area received lake effect snow on a regular basis.
Some of our best memories were of those snowy days. We had a great room with a working fireplace and I usually bought one or two cords of red oak, white oak, and hickory each Fall. There wasn't anything better than sitting in front of the fireplace on a winter's afternoon or evening with a crackling fire. Our dog was a puppy and young dog in those years and she loved to get up on the recliner with Carol, lay her head on her chest, and fall fast asleep.
I think of all these things today because we are home from the office with predictions of 15-18 inches of snow this afternoon. The Philadelphia area will break its all-time winter snow record today. Of course, we haven't gotten as much snow, but we are certainly getting socked today. And it's beautiful outside.When I was in seminary, and on the occasion of a significant snowfall, I'd follow a certain routine. First, I sat in my rocking chair in my bedroom, opened the blinds, and occasionaly looked outside as I read the "snow" poems of my favorite American poet, Robert Frost. Then I'd get bundled up, and walk north of the seminary on North Main Street in Wake Forest, NC. Most of the homes on that six block stretch of road were Victorian or early 20th century architecture. I felt a strong sense of peace and connection with God when I would take those walks in the deafening silence of snowfall (yes, it was sort of like being in a Thomas Kincaide painting). And though I did not have the words for it at that time, it was one of my earliest cognizant experiences of what Celtic Christianity called thin places.
One my Facebook friends, Liz, wrote these words in a recent blog. The novelist Mary DeMuth, in her memoir Thin Places, describes thin places as, '..snatches of holy ground, tucked into the corners of our world, where, if we pay very close attention, we might just catch a glimpse of eternity.....They are aha moment, beautiful, realizations, when the Son of God burst through the hazy fog of our monotony and shines on us afresh.'
I think that is as good a description of thin places that I've ever heard. I hope today that you have an opportunity to rejoice in the beauty of God's creation, the overwhelming silence of the snow, and the delight at a winter wonderland presented to us. I hope you have an "aha" moment, and a sense of the presence of God that burst on us in these serendipity moments of life that are all too rare and so life-enhancing.
(Thanks to Daria, Omar, & Richard for providing these photos)
