Dear Friends,

There is something wondrous about the silence a snowfall brings. I read recently of the reason that sounds are muffled during a snowstorm:

When light, fluffy snow accumulates on the ground, it acts as a sound absorber, dampening sound waves much like commercial sound absorbing products.

“Snow is going to be porous, and typically porous materials such as fibers and foams, and things of that sort, absorb sound pretty well,” said David Herrin, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Engineering who studies acoustics.*

For all of the inconvenience that a heavy snow can bring, it can also bring moments of seeing God’s beauty, and time to contemplate in quiet what our place in the world is meant to be. Quiet is rarer and rarer in our world today, as is the requirement to sit or stand and simply contemplate.

In the psalm we read this past Sunday, we were told by the psalmist that God

…gives snow like wool:
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.

We know that God does not direct the particular aspects of any weather event. Still, we trust that this is the same God, who the same psalmist declares,

“counts the number of the stars,
and calls them all by their names.”

And God knows our names as well.

I hope that in the midst of shoveling, scraping, and dealing with reconfigured schedules, you can nonetheless take at least a moment today to dwell in the quietness around you. Receive that quiet as a gift from God, in which you may contemplate your place in this beautiful cosmos, and your response to the One who knows you by name.

Faithfully in Christ,

Tom