Happy Valentine’s Day 2025
The Latest in Snow
Tuesday’s snow arrived, just as predicted. The small flakes gradually grew larger, and they fell steadily, hour after hour. The present, middle-aged me would likely have said Enough! Unlike the past two years, we’ve had our share of the white stuff this winter. It seemed that the deep snow of January 6 might just be with us forever, thanks to regularly frigid temperatures. We bid goodbye to its last persistent dregs only about a week ago, and it was strange to see actual lawn again. But, as I wrote in my last post, I had recently been in conversation with my much younger, severely snow-deprived self. She advised me to relax and enjoy. It was another lovely snowfall, after all.
The present me is grateful for today’s warming trend, accompanied by rain. Goodbye snow! No need to hurry back. Why not wait a year or so before visiting again?
Winter Icing
Last week’s winter storm brought ice to our part of Northern Virginia. We awoke to a translucent landscape. It took me back to a time in my Atlanta childhood when I had little first-hand experience with snow, at least any that I could remember. My parents would wax nostalgic about family fun in the snow when I was a baby in Lexington, Kentucky. They seemed surprised that I carried no tender memories of making a snowman with Daddy when I was a year old. I grew up feeling sorely snow-deprived. Every once in a while, snow might be predicted, but typically, what we got instead, in Atlanta, was ice.
The current Virginia weather prompted me to rummage through a shoe box of 1970s photos at my mother’s house. I was searching for a particular picture of me and two friends. It had been taken in our back yard on a day when school had been canceled due to a winter weather event, whether snow or ice, I couldn’t recall. But I remembered that the three of us had that characteristically awkward, disheveled, waif-like look of most ten to twelve year olds from that era.
I found the photo quickly. It was a rare snow picture. On the back I’d printed: First snow, Atlanta, 1971. While it obviously wasn’t the city’s first-ever snow, it apparently was mine, in that location. We’d moved to the neighborhood only three years before. My old green and red swing set is visible at back left, long before it became an arbor for wisteria vines. I’d forgotten that that our yard had been such a wide open expanse in those early years. By the time we sold the house, in 2017, trees, shrubs and foliage had grown up dramatically, creating the look of a sheltered, enclosed garden. The corner of the garage, at back right, hadn’t been visible like that for many years, nor had the homes on the street behind.
The details of that winter day in 1971 are hazy. Seems like we wandered around and gaped, in awe, at the alien snow-covered landscape. We weren’t well-equipped for actual snow play. Cold, wet feet and hands prevented us from staying out very long. My husband is amused at how ill-dressed we were for the circumstances, in corduroys or jeans, and sneakers. This was Atlanta, not Rochester, I remind him. Few, if any of my friends had snow boots or ski wear; we would have outgrown them before they were ever needed. Winter in Atlanta was less a season than an exotic, fleetingly ephemeral sensation.
My memories of Atlanta ice storms are more distinctly fixed in my memory than the snow days. Growing up, I considered any form of frozen precipitation a welcome break from the usual. Ice, snow’s cousin, was our more frequent visitor, and I found its effects fascinating. As I roamed the icy yard last week, I saw it again with the eyes of a much younger me.
I loved how frozen droplets, their motion captured mid-air, dangled from dogwood branches. I saw, with wonder, that every individual privet leaf had been perfectly encased in ice. Each leaf was twinned with its own ice copy that could be carefully removed. Amazing!
I enjoyed hearing and feeling the ice-clad blades of grass crunch beneath my feet as I walked.
I liked how the light filtering through ice-covered branches gave the sky a lavender tinge.
Suddenly, I was brought back to the present by a sharp sound resembling a gunshot. The birds at the feeder vanished in a whoosh, and pine boughs came crashing down. The temperature was rising, and the sleet had turned to rain, but the pines all around our house were bending lower and lower with the extra water weight. The power went out. There were more gunshot-like sounds. I could see cars slowing down out front, avoiding a couple of newly downed limbs.
We were fortunate in having only minimal damage to trees from last week’s ice. This week’s winter storm is just now beginning. Small snowflakes are starting to fall. Accumulation of three to six inches is predicted for the metro DC area. The ten-year old me from 1971 would be ecstatic (and far better prepared, in terms of apparel.)
Wherever you are, may winter wow you with its beauty, rather than its destructive power.
Witness to a Predation
In recent days, I’ve made a decision to focus consciously on the good. On the beautiful. That verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians (4:8) has been echoing in my head: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
I won’t hide my head in the sand and deny reality, and I’ll try to find ways to be helpful. But I’ll make an effort to look for sunshine amidst the shadows. So my outlook was fairly positive yesterday as I was sitting at my computer, ordering stamps for our New Year’s cards. I added more of the Winter Woodland Animals to my cart. I love these stamps, which feature a stylized fox, buck, rabbit and owl in snowy settings.
Then, bang! There was a sudden thud at the window beside me. A few wispy white feathers floated in the air. On the ground was a dark-eyed junco, one of the many that fly down from Canada to winter here in Virginia. The small, gray and white bird lay on its back, motionless. It looked utterly helpless, its little legs in the air. I watched in dismay as it remained there, still. As I stood at the window, my instinct was to pray over the bird, in words something like this: Dear God, your eye is on the sparrow, so your eye must also be on its cousin, the junco. You made this little miracle creature, so why not heal it? It’s a miracle of flight. It’s a miracle that such a tiny being can thrive in this desperately cold weather. It’s a miracle of elegance and beauty.
I waited. Dear God, let me be a conduit of your love, of your healing power.
The bird remained motionless.
Should I go out? Give it the gentlest of nudges? I decided not to interfere.
And just then, the bird stirred. It popped up, fluffed its feathers. It appeared to be gathering its energy, preparing to fly. It looked fine. It looked like it was going to be OK.
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, God!
And just then, there was quick flash of dark feathers, and the little bird was gone. In horror, I realized I hadn’t been the only one watching the injured junco. A hawk, hidden from view, had evidently been eyeing its potential prey. It swooped down and disappeared with its catch. It flew away with the mini-miracle that had just seemed to regain its strength.
I opened the window and clapped and screamed. It was too late, of course. But my anger and anguish needed an outlet. I yelled myself hoarse. So much for the sunny side of life.
I’ve observed nature long enough to have seen first-hand evidence of its sharp teeth and claws, of the thorns among the roses. I know that the cute bunny on the Winter Woodland stamps may end up as dinner for the equally charming fox or owl. I regularly see handsome red-shouldered hawks about, silently surveying their surroundings. They gaze at me coolly, poised and superior. I get it that my bird-feeding area can occasionally be a death zone. I see telltale clumps of feathers on the ground. For several years now, I’ve noticed a solitary dove as it appears before and remains after its fellow partnered couples. Call me silly and sentimental, but I’ve prayed for that lonely dove, too.
I considered that the small songbird had been injured more severely than was apparent. Maybe it would have managed to make its way to a hidden spot, only to suffer a long, drawn-out death. Perhaps the hawk merely hastened the end while nourishing itself?
I understand that all creatures, including hawks, need to eat. I’m not a vegetarian. I eat chicken, so technically, like a hawk, I prey on birds. But let the hawks eat elsewhere. Anywhere but in my side yard sanctuary.
I keep replaying the events in my head. The abrupt juxtaposition of hope and despair makes the repeating vision particularly painful. I thought the little bird was a goner, then I thought it had a chance, that it had survived a near miss. That my prayers had been heard, and answered. Then I watched as it fell victim to a terrible fate and certain death.
I can’t help but see the series of incidents as emblematic of life in our times. Seems we’re entering an era, in our nation and in the world, where predators and tyrants are celebrated and granted free reign, while the most vulnerable are targeted, maligned, and persecuted.
In my last post, I mused about what loveliness I might be missing just beyond my windows. Now I wonder what terrible sights I’ve been fortunate to miss. Will I look out onto a happy haven or a killing field? Even on the sunny side, the shadows encroach.
Witness to an Occultation. . .and to What Else?
Our daughter called on Monday evening to inform us of a quickly approaching astronomical event: the lunar occultation of Mars. As an aerospace engineer who minored in astronomy, she’s up on all that sort of stuff. I think she was somewhat surprised when I knew exactly what she was talking about. In preparation for my recent post on shadows cast by the nearly full February Wolf moon, I’d read that the moon would occult, or hide, Mars briefly on the night of January 13. To us Earthlings, Mars appears particularly big and bright now. It’s nearing the point in its orbit at which it’s closest to Earth. The side we’re seeing is fully lit by the sun, so the planet appears especially red. Those of us in the continental United States and parts of Africa had the chance Monday, under clear skies, to watch Mars, looking like a glowing red dot, move closer and closer to the moon until it disappeared behind it. After a while, it appeared again on the other side.
Thanks to our daughter’s reminder, around 8:45 I began stepping outside at regular intervals to observe the celestial show. Fortunately, it was another beautifully clear night. Through my bird-watching binoculars, I could distinctly see the tiny red jewel of Mars as it sidled up to the bright white globe of the moon. After a bit, it disappeared behind the moon. About a half hour afterwards, Mars emerged on the opposite side of the moon.
I would have missed the evening’s distant, silent spectacle, had my daughter not called. It made me consider, with wonder, what unseen curiosities and marvels, large and small, may be regularly unfolding around me. Often, they’re essentially invisible, as I’m lost in my head, preoccupied. Sometimes it’s with a cumbersome, amorphous anxiety. Or with small worries that tend to loom ever larger the more I dwell on them.
Every once in a while, I happen to glance outside at exactly the right moment to see a bird that’s not among the crowd of regulars around our feeders: a brown creeper hopping with zesty deliberateness up the pine, a golden-crowned kinglet flitting lightly among the leaves of the Japanese maple, a hermit thrush absolutely motionless on the bird bath. And the next moment, the bird is gone. What others come and go, without my ever knowing?
What mysteries are taking place in the skies above, and in the ground below? When this human-made world is too much with me, when people disappoint (just as I have been known to let down those who care about me), when institutions founder, when things prove faulty, when I’m close to feeling overwhelmed, I can remember to do this: Look out. Look up. Or down. Direct my attention to the everyday glories transpiring all around me. Change my perspective.
Right now, outside my window, the shadows are blue on the white snow. Two Carolina wrens are hanging upside down from the suet feeder, pecking mightily. A squirrel, the one with the fluffy ear tufts, perches atop a chair, looking thoughtful, its little hands clasped together. When evening comes, I can watch the now waning moon as it rises above the trees. I can remember to look for Mars, and for the bright stars of Orion. I likely won’t see another lunar occultation for a while. But I may witness something that will inspire awe and take me out of myself for a precious while.
Wolf Moon Shadows on the Snow
I’ve written before about quite possibly my favorite view anywhere–from our front windows on a snowy, moonlit night. The shadows of our old silver maples appear to be etched sharply, as in black ink, on the sparkling, snow-covered lawn. We’ve been treated to that scene for the past two nights. The January Wolf moon is almost full. Its radiance is breathtaking. Photographs can’t quite capture the beauty, but they come closer than words.
May winter luminescence brighten your spirits!
Previous posts on this view: Maple Tree Shadows on the Moonlit Lawn, January 9, 2020, and My Favorite View, February 25, 2014.
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas. . .
The Christmas season always speeds by, but with every year, it zips past at a faster pace. This year especially, it’s a blur. Is it the lack of that extra week, due to Thanksgiving’s later date? That our daughter wasn’t with us for quite as long? Is it my advancing age? It certainly does seem that time moves more and more quickly the older I get.
My husband, who is younger, agrees. We find ourselves looking at the Christmas tree after dinner and marveling at the fact that December 25 and its accompanying festivities are all in the rear view mirror. We did the usual decorative preparations–the indoor/outdoor lighting, the wreaths, a small forest of Christmas trees at our house and my mother’s. We shopped for our family and and others, we wrapped gifts. We enjoyed a celebratory pre-Christmas dinner out with our daughter and her fiance. Post-Christmas, our two families walked and talked through an extensive light show at a local garden park. Of course, there was the not-to-be missed Live Nativity and Christmas Eve worship service. We opened gifts and shared Christmas dinner with my mother. No crucial elements were missing. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention? Not living in the moment? Looking back, it seems as though I was too busy to be mindful.
And then, yesterday, on the final day of Christmas, it snowed. A big, beautiful, drifting snow. Now it really looks like Christmas. And it just so happens that I have time to breathe in and out fully, and to enjoy that Christmas feeling. No appointments, no projects that must be tackled immediately. Now, I can be present.
So, at a point at which most people are taking down their Christmas decorations, or have boxed them up days ago, I will be savoring them.
My husband is typically not one for issuing decrees. He’s never played the bossy guy with me, as he knows it would do him no good. But he has decreed that January 6th must be the final evening for the outdoor spotlights and interior window candles. This is a stretch for him. Growing up, his family took down the tree down sometimes even before they ushered in the new year. Although a church-goer all his life, he wasn’t aware, until I informed him, of the tradition of leaving the decorations up until Epiphany. We can’t turn the lights out until the Magi arrive! How will they find the baby Jesus without simulated stars to guide them?
My husband fears that without his guidance, I’d leave the decorations up until Easter. But I wouldn’t. They’d be out before Valentine’s Day. I may attempt to negotiate a few extra days with the exterior lights and the candles. Because with the snow, the illuminated house looks extra pretty. I could say that. Or because it’s the middle of the week, when his days are spent at the office. He’d probably rather not spend an evening packing up the candles, right? (He puts them up, and he takes them down.)
I’ll probably let him get his way with the lights that are in his charge. But all the other interior lights and decorations–those are in my purview. With those, I’ll take my time. I’ll relish this white Christmas in the post-Christmas season.
Live Nativity 2024
The Christmas Eve live nativity is one of our church’s most beloved traditions, very popular with the local community. For several hours on the afternoon of December 24, the painted nativity figures arranged in the creche are joined by a group of living, breathing beasties. My daughter and I haven’t missed the event yet.
The sweet, sturdy little burro was back. I love his floppy, velvety ears and thick, buff-colored coat. He’s the furry embodiment of patient, calm endurance. How appropriate that his long-ago forbear carried Mary and her unborn child across the rugged paths from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
The donkey’s partner was not the gray hump-backed ox of previous years, but a petite black cow. The two seemed perfectly content to munch hay and be admired by a continuing parade of humans.
A goat and a sheep hunkered down in the hay, apparently intent on sleep, but repeatedly awakened by small, curious, caressing hands.
The camel this year was Moses, a determined snuggler. As if on cue, he rested his heavy head on the shoulder of any person who stepped up next to him for a photo op.
These two kids were unsure about being in immediate proximity to Moses’s enormous face, so their dad held them at a slight distance. Moses, always easy-going, nestled his head on his trainer’s shoulder, instead.
During the hours that Moses the camel and his hirsute entourage are holding court, the inanimate nativity figures recede into the background. But once Moses and the other animals have been led back to their trailer (and are likely on on their way to their next gig in Northern Virginia), the painted figures remain in their places in the simple wooden creche. But on Christmas Eve there is an essential addition. The empty spot between Mary and Joseph is filled. A homemade manger holds a swaddled doll. The other figures have a focal point toward which to direct their reverent gazes.
When I first brought the fiberglass nativity forms up to the church, after finishing the work of repainting, I was struck by the bare starkness of the shelter that encloses them. Did it need some swags of greenery, perhaps? Certainly no red bows or shiny ornaments, but branches of fir, pine, or spruce? Sprigs of holly and berries?
But no. Even such natural decorations are part of the trappings of our commercial, cozy, secular “Merry Christmas.” The humbleness of the scene is the point. The nativity grouping speaks to a timeless, sacred truth. While that great truth inspires, to some degree, at least, the jolly festiveness of the season, it needs no dressing up. It’s fitting that hay is the only adornment. As the Grinch discovers, Christmas “came without ribbons, it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes or bags.”
The gift of God’s grace came on Christmas in the form of a baby, unfathomably both human and divine. That baby grew up and served as a role model for us, his fellow brothers and sisters. During his earthly life, Jesus personified kindness, compassion, mercy and forgiveness. In his words and in his actions, he taught that our life’s goal should be to follow his example.
The awesomeness of the gift of salvation offered to us through Christ’s sacrificial death can never be overstated. But Christmas reminds us to look to our brother Jesus to guide us in living every day, here in our present world. This world needs all the love we can give.
Christmas 2025
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King,
let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing,
and heaven and nature sing,
and heaven and heaven, and nature sing.
Joy to the world, the savior reigns!
Let all their songs employ;
while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy,
repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground;
he comes to make his blessings flow,
far as the curse is found,
far as, far as, the curse is found.
He rules the world, with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of his righteousness,
and wonders of his love,
and wonders, and wonders, of his love.
–Joy to the World
Words: Isaac Watts, 1719 (Psalm 98: 4-9)
Music: Arr. from G.F. Handel, 1741, by Lowell Mason, 1848
Nativity Makeover
At the end of September, a friend asked if I could give our church’s well-worn nativity figures “a coat of paint.” These fiberglass forms are set up every Advent in front of the church under the shelter of a wooden creche. They likely date to the early 1960s. The human figures vary from about three to four feet in height. Hollow, they’re filled with sand to weigh them down. I hadn’t given them a very close viewing, ever. I only remember thinking that they could look better.
My friend had noticed that many of the forms were chipped, with patches of peeling paint. When he asked me to repaint them, I think he was envisioning a quick coating to cover the bare spots and reseal the fiberglass.
But I couldn’t do only that. The colorless faces called out for definition, for enlivening touches. The eyes, in particular, were empty and blank. The clothing could benefit from gradations in hue and shadow. The faces and bodies needed nuance.
As I mentioned in an October post, the task of improving the animals struck me as less daunting, so I started with them. I’m generally not a painter of people, and the human forms, I knew, would be challenging. I began with Mary. It was an easy decision to replace her golden hair with dark brown, but her smooth, oval face proved especially troublesome. I kept returning to her as I worked on the others. Gradually, she gained a bit of character. Once I darkened Joseph’s eyes and eyebrows, he was revealed to be quite handsome.
I brightened up the angel’s ghostly pallor in her face and wings. She’s one of the few figures to have ears. I tried to reduce somewhat the size of her right ear, which was particularly prominent. She still has a rather elfin look, which I find charming.
The shepherd’s expression, before, was a grumpy, curmudgeonly squint. I tried to give him a more benign, dignified demeanor. I also changed his purple cloak to one of brown. Purple dye, during ancient times, was exorbitantly expensive, since it was painstakingly produced from the glands of huge numbers of small sea snails. It was a color for kings, not for humble shepherds.
The sole Biblical source for the three Magi is the Gospel of Matthew (2:1 – 12) which refers to “wise men from the East,” likely not kings at all, but astrologers, as they were led by a star to Bethlehem and the home of the holy family. Their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh attest to their substantial wealth. Because of their Eastern origins, they were probably not Jews. Some sources suggest that they could have been priests of the Zoroastrian religion, widely practiced throughout Persia. Their inclusion in the nativity story serves to demonstrate a crucial point: the baby Jesus was sent by God to be a savior not only for the Hebrew people, but for all nations. It was in early medieval times that the wise men began to be identified as kings, each hailing from one of the three known continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. The message in this identification is clear: the baby in the manger offers salvation to everyone, the world over.
The faces of the three kings were already nicely differentiated from each other. Because of their distinctive features, they required the least of my efforts. A more subtle application of paint brought out their personalities and enlivened them.
Of all the forms, the camel was probably the least in need of a makeover. I lightened his coat and touched up his face. His regally fringed saddle and harness needed only some shading and glints of deep red.
Finally, when the last coat of polyurethane had been applied (some eighty hours of work having passed since I dipped a brush into primer to start on the little lamb) it was time for the group to leave my mother’s house. Mama and I were sort of sad to see them go, as they’d appeared very much at home in her living room. I couldn’t squeeze the entire group into my little car at once, so I made two trips. They were pleasant passengers.
Now the nativity figures are outside our church, in their usual positions in the creche. There is a notably empty space at the center, between Mary and Joseph. That blank spot speaks to the essence of Christmas. No amount of elaborate decorating, or frenzied holiday partying, or masses of material gifts, can satisfy that hollow place in our souls. But if we let it, God’s love can fill us to overflowing, so that we may be bearers of kindness and compassion to those who need it most. Our world is often dark. But with the true gift of Christmas, we can bring the light.
Let’s all bring a little light, this holiday season!