Listening for falling snow

Dec. 9, 2004

Dear Pat,

Before her pictures included me, DC lived in Northern California and loved going to Lake Tahoe for cross country skiing. She would take the four-lane highway north until it turned into two lanes and then one, going up the mountain until she was high enough to find falling snow.

Snow doesn't fall often enough in Southeast Missouri for people to bother with cross country skiing, but that doesn't stop DC from missing it. So for our most recent anniversary, I phoned Mr. L.L. Bean and had him send a set of skis, poles and boots her size.

For months she didn't take them out of the box. I was disappointed. Maybe it was just too warm and the prospects of being able to ski too heartbreakingly remote.

Finally I removed everything from the box and set them next to the front door. The picture was idyllic, like something in a catalog, skis at the ready awaiting the first snowfall.

Among the truths about DC I have learned in 11 years of marriage is that she doesn't like to wait for anything or anyone.

So it was last Sunday morning that she was working on the sermon she would give the children at her church later in the morning and landed on the idea of teaching them that listening for God is just as important as talking to Him. It occurred to her that listening to God is like listening to snow fall. You can't hear either one if you're busy thinking about and doing other things. But if you stand on a mountain or even a quiet hill while the snow is falling, you can hear the sound made by falling snow. And if you are still enough, you can hear God.

Now, DC knows you have to get children's attention before they'll listen to anything that sounds like a sermon. She looked at me and I looked back. We both knew what she had to do, but she was still undecided. "Your dad would do it," I said.

An hour later and a few minutes into the church service, DC stood at the back of the sanctuary looking like someone who belonged on a trail at Lake Tahoe. This would be her first cross country skiing outing of the year, albeit an indoor one.

I had cautioned her against poling the carpet, but she didn't need to. The waxless skis slid smoothly as she skied from the back of the sanctuary to the children waiting at the front.

Uproarious laughter isn't usual during services at DC's church. They're Presbyterians. But that morning was different. When the noise faded away, DC talked to the children about listening to God and listening to snow fall. She told them God's voice would appear not in their ears but in their hearts.

Her minister was reminded of Sunday services when he asked the congregation for prayers and concerns and his young son always wanted them to pray for snow.

One of Rumi's love poems to God begins, "When it's cold and raining, you are more beautiful/And the snow brings me even closer to your lips."

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is the managing editor for the Southeast Missourian