The Sound of Snow

Winter has hit Arkansas, and it is beautiful! Like the ocean, a ground covered in freshly fallen snow, is a picture of peace, calm, and beautiful. But it is also a thing of strength. The way it can take over and cover the landscape is majestic.

There’s a little park next to my house. Most if the time it’s full of kids throwing a ball back and forth, or the little ones swinging in the swings and climbing the slide. During the summer the little park echos the sounds of children laughing under a parent’s watchful eye, or hums with the sound of lawnmowers as the city maintains it to keep it clean.

Today, the little park next door is quiet. No children are playing, no birds are singing, no lawnmowers are humming. Today, Pugh Park is a picture of calm, peace, serenity, and an example of God’s hand as He releases the bright newness of a blanket of snow. I can’t quit saying how beautiful it is.

There is no sound when snow falls. There might be wind accompanying the snow and the sound of howling interrupts the serenity and pierces the calm. Sometimes the silence is interrupted by the pelting of the freezing rain. The first glimpse of the freshly fallen snow, after the wind stops howling and the sleet stops pelting, is a picture of what I would think peace would look like.

I know to my northern readers, you may not see snow in the same way as we southerners do. When the heavens send down the weather of winter, we don’t usually get snow. We usually get the nemesis of the roads – ice, freezing rain, sleet, the stuff that sends more people waiting in a ditch for the tow truck to get around to you. If we get snow, it is usually after ice. We turn on our faucets to a thin stream in the hope our pipes don’t freeze.

Of course, any experienced Southerner has already made the obligatory trip to the local grocery store to buy the “anticipated winter storm staples”- milk, bread and eggs. I never knew why that combination has become part of our nature, and I don’t remember hurrying to get those “necessary items”, but more likely I can be found in the dog food aisle!

I’m going to put on my fuzzy PJs, get out an amazingly soft blanket, love on my dogs, and watch the layers of cotton blanketing my yard as it still flutters down.

Grab you snuggle buddy, turn up the fire, and stay safe!