You have seen it. You have seen it and perhaps smiled at it or cursed it. It comes at either the most opportune times for appreciating it or at the worst possible time when it can be almost deadly. Snow with the sun upon it can create amazing views.
I refer, of course, to the amazingly bright reflection of the sun off the snow. For snow enthusiasts looking across the mountainside at the reflection atop the deep layers of freshies it brings joy. A fresh layer of new powder delights the skier and photographer alike. With the right alignment of sun, snow and slope, the skiing is perfect, the photographs awe-inspiring and the day a complete success. The wrong direction of the sun’s rays, however, brings difficulty seeing, treacherous downhills and even when driving to the slopes, it can be a hazard.
For those who do not ski nor even care much about venturing out into the snow, except perhaps to track a deer in the last bit of the hunting season, the sun’s rays across the field of snow can still be breathtaking. If your only plans involve being indoors near both a wide picture window from where you can see the sun play across the snow and a brisk fire blazing within a few feet, your concerns are few. Particularly if the fireside holds with it a welcoming easy chair summoning you for an early afternoon nap.
I am in the latter rather than the former group. My biggest fear when receiving our first assignments from Air Force Basic Training was that mine would include names like Thule, Greenland, Minot, North Dakota or even Clear Air Force Station, Alaska. Beside the geographical locations, the assignments there in the 70’s included fun things such as Minot’s CATs and it was not a musical! These were Camper Alert Teams where a team went out for a 3 day stint (sometimes longer depending on how deep the snow had gotten) at a remote missile site. The emphasis is on the word, REMOTE. Checking radar installations near the Arctic Circle from Clear would have been a world of fun, I’m certain! And note the name Clear Air Force Station. A station is not as big as a base which means it has less of the everyday necessities like a full size BX (base exchange), a laundry, proper housing, maybe a theater or a physician on staff, perhaps not even a ‘real’ cook… you know, basics. Thankfully, I never had the joy of visiting Clear so I cannot say what it was like in the 70’s or even now fifty plus years later.
When I left Ohio for San Antonio in 1975, I swore I would not return. I did, however, and now I’ve been here about 65 years. I stood traffic duty in a full size blizzard in 1978. I took my wife, whose water had broken and she was about to deliver our son, to the hospital 48 miles away through swirling wind and temperatures with windchill in the minus 50 range. We had a city snowplow get us out of our driveway to begin that trek. We have endured horrific winter storms and we have had mild, nothing to recall kinds of winters. Still, though, they were winters.
I recall having snow tunnels as a kid built from the snow blown against our house and one winter, our small dog ran off and my elder brother and I went in pursuit. Several blocks away and about an hour into the search, I could not go on, being so cold and the snow so deep. My brother built a small igloo kind of barrier from the wind where he placed me as he continued on and there I sat. It was almost dark when he came back by to retrieve me, our small beagle happily bundled in his jacket.
Years later as a volunteer firefighter we responded on a horrifically cold night to a barn fire at the edge of town. Jumping off the truck, it was obvious the ground was ice covered. I wrapped the inch and a half firehose under my arm and went as quickly as possible toward the barn. The pump operator charged the line, unbeknownst to me. The charged line under 110 pounds of pressure at the nozzle sprang to life, jerking my feet out from under me and slamming me backward on the ice. Recovering, I got into the barn where a calf had tangled himself in a pile of farm tools trying to escape. As I tried to free him from his snare, the frightened calf leaned forward a bit me with all the force he could muster on my right thigh. His teeth went through the rubber thigh high boots we were issued in those days. Although my thoughts were to leave him where he stood, I freed him anyway hoping to someday see him again on a large barbeque pit.
I’m sure I could regale you with more yarns of misadventures in the snow, ice, and cold but suffice it to say, I am much more at home in a hammock, swaying lightly on a sandy beach somewhere in the Caribbean than in anything that begins with the reference to snow. God spoke to Job about snow and asked him an incredible question. “Have you visited the treasuries of the snow, or seen where hail is made and stored? For I have reserved it for the time when I will need it in war.” (Job 38:22-23 NLT) Such an amazing thought particularly if you consider history and how the snow was decisive in so many battles, the most poignant in recent history, the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. Job had declared previously, “For he directs the snow, the showers, and storm to fall upon the earth.” (Job 37:6 NLT) To consider that God uses bitter weather toward His own purposes brings a deeper meaning to the white stuff we so long for on Christmas Eve and despise on March 1st
Winter, I know is God’s method of bringing nature to a time of rest before a new season of spring life and growing begin. That is a wonderful miracle and how some animals change over the winter months or those who hibernate so that their systems are rebooted before spring is certainly God inspired. The beauty of a field covered in a fresh snow can truly be an awe inspiring sight. I thank God for His gift of the seasons and I am thankful as well that just three weeks from tomorrow which will be Saturday Feb. 26th, the Cleveland Indians (aka guardians….) will take on the Cincinnati Reds at Goodyear Park in Phoenix as the Pre-Season begins and SPRING Training is in full swing!
Doc Riggs' Ministry Minute 