The gift

This morning, Christmas eve, we woke to find the world outside our frosted windows miraculously adorned in sparkling white, or at least it felt miraculous: the sudden transformation of even the ugliest edges, roads and ruts, wires, poles and structures into objects of wonder in a magical landscape. The lofty and low, the prized and despised, the precious and neglected, subjected to the beneficent equity of snowfall. Everything made new. A clean slate. Racket and commotion absorbed into its calm purity. Stillness, awe, goodwill. Peace on earth. And though snowfall in Bethlehem remains a rare event, a White Christmas somehow feels like a "real" Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Immanuel: "God with us." All of us.
Let it snow.