Do you believe in miracles?
That is the album he was listening to when he was younger as he assembled one of the freshest, most enjoyable writings he'd ever crafted. He was typing in those days into a Compaq Computer. Plunking away with two pointers and much patience with typos. The specific date escapes him to this day, but there was snow in the air and Kenny G was still close to newborn on the airwaves, nevertheless, that afternoon he got caught up in a vision.
He flew onto the stage of the page as a snowflake… Whirling through the skies of his life, if you will. We join the flying snowflake with a friendly visit to each of his brothers, we are strewn through the yawning expanse of the deep blue starry skies out in the country, we address carolers in the town square, we are nearly licked by a labrador and then wind up slipping through the doorway for the day of the big day… of course, at home.
His last great turn before falling onto the mat in front of the brick fireplace, with its family photos and dads stuffed pheasant on the mantle, wreath in the center with candles about, takes him through a stables where an infant surrounded by sheep and donkeys is attended by his mother.
He wondered how Zoe was making it now that the snow was falling so freely. They had expected nearly 6 to 8 inches. He went back and forth between fear for her… And then also in more hopeful moments there was almost a slight giddiness as he wondered how she was making it out there. The two of them had confidence in each other. It took her a lot to leave the apartment, and yet, she believed fully that he would be perfectly okay… After some time of course. Likewise, letting go of her was starting to happen along these lines.
She's going to find a good place. Her new adventures are underway as we speak.
But now the snowflakes… All the snowflakes. Each and every one. Out in the park, where he wore his cashmere scarf and leather gloves, pairing well with his Cambridge gray topcoat and tweed drivers cap, it was nothing but snowflakes as far as the eye could reach.
How many trillion now stirred in the air above him, so alive.
And – oh yes!…
No two of them are the same.
No two of them are the same.
… Nor is any human, Zoe might say.
They are singular beings.
Failing to see the miracle they are, as they live and breathe. They are singular, she could go on, you remember how she was. They are singular, they're also contingent beings… They do not exist of necessity. You and I do not "have to be here."
There was a time before you were here and in just a glimpse there will be a time going on long after you. What brings you into being? And what about your parents, parents, parents…?
It takes a miracle to make a snowflake, to give it its duration out over the open field among the breezes white cold of the living, on a winters wind, right? Flight, is love on the feather tips, is life, flown singularly…
We are given from the wind and into the wind among and between those like us who would never last long without it, Zoe might say. We are contingent beings, sustained breath by breath, drink by drink, meal by meal…
A second time – behold all things new… In your midst The Christmas winds especially remind us of this mysterious and intimate love life we wake up to as often as we wish we could, in the flow and with a gusty gracious and helping wind… Zoe might say.
Christmas was about awakening once again to the invitation to live in full communion with Christ alive, to participate and to remain as present to his loving presence and also his suffering as we can and to remain in hope of full restoration of creation, in its entirety…Fullness of life forever and for all… Amen and amen.
He was now of course at his desk writing. He drank coffee. He kept thinking about these things.
Then he would stop again. He would put on his orange scarf, button his topcoat firmly, afix his hat after running a hand through his hair and make his way back out among the snowflakes.
For all he knew she could be walking out there someplace in the park. Worth a try…
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