Frozen Manna

I can barely walk today. That is because yesterday we got that promised blizzard, the winter storm to beat all winter storms, the harbinger of the dreaded melting of the glaciers and annihilation of all polar bears. We got a full one and one quarter inches of fresh powder. Charlotte ground to a standstill. Every event was canceled including church. For the Bible Belt to cancel church, you know the storm is of epic proportions. I arose in the morning and pulled aside the blinds- SNOW!!! Real honest to goodness frozen manna from heaven waiting for me to go frolic and taste the goodness and beauty of God's icing on the streets.
I quickly downed breakfast, and gathered the cross country ski equipment, that is thirty years old and only gets called into service once a year here in Charlotte. In places that are used to snow, like NY where I hail from, the twenty inches that drop every hour are immediately dispatched, but here in Charlotte, the one snow plow that serves the entire southeast was busy in Concord which got a death defying 5 inches, so we were sure to have snow covered streets til at least April or the first thaw....tomorrow. So I opened the door, slapped on my skis, and the world was my groomed trail! I skied joyously down the white street. The downhills became Olympic mountains, the speed bumps my moguls. I passed many children who stopped building snowmen to point at me, and say, "Look Mama! An alien!"
Many adults called out, "You're not from around here, are you?"
It was clear that no one in Charlotte had ever seen a cross country skier.
I headed to the open wilderness, the sidewalks along the busy thoroughfare. Few cars were out as one inch of snow is not to be trifled with, unless it is for an emergency situation like a Starbucks Latte. Now while much of my writing is intended to be humorous and somewhat exaggerated, I am telling the truth when I say that this was the singular best day of ski conditions I had ever encountered. God had sent a cystal layer of pellets as a base, and then soft powder, but just one inch. So my skis could not ever hit the damaging pavement, but slid across the icy pellets and were cushioned by the soft powder. It was the finest groomed ski trail and I raced along the sidewalks. I made for the golf course, the one where only the people who have cheated on their taxes can possibly afford. Normally, the guard at the iron gate there takes one look at me and slams the door shut as it is clear people of my station in life are not allowed. But the guard house was unmanned, as no one but the snow bunnies were out that morn, so I whisked onto the forbidden grounds. I skied last winter in the Washington mountains, and I can tell you, that golf course was just as gorgeous with the added benefit of no pumas stalking me. I sailed up and down huge hills and deftly negotiated sand traps with ease. The whole country was blanketed in untrammeled white, and I was alone, lost in the wilderness of an elite golf course.

I knew I had skied too far and would pay dearly for it by the next morning, but it didn't matter. If I must be crippled by excess, let it be an excess of joy. I skied 18 holes, and sadly turned homeward.

And today, I can barely walk. Did you know that there are muscles in your ear lobes? There must be, because even there, I ache. But it is a pain from feasting on the pure goodness of God's world, a satiating moment of beauty and pure whiteness in the often grey stumbles of life.

Psalm 51:7
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.