There's A Place

I drove from Chicago to Detroit last night, New Year's Eve. Tomorrow starts an 8-day retreat for our candidates, and so I wanted to make it here before the 9 inch snowfall. I was successful. It started to snow as the clock struck midnight and 2008 began. This morning, I went outside to take a walk and noticed a pile of fresh snow near a small evergreen bush. It looked like baking power: pure white and a very fine, dry powder. I scooped up a handful and took a bite. Woah! OK, if you live in an area where snow falls fresh, try this little experiment to see what a number it does on your memory. Bite into some fresh snow and see if you aren't transported back to your life at age 6. Suddenly, as I bit the handful of snow this morning, I saw our front living room at Christmas and some of the presents I got around the year 1960. It was only an instant, but it was sure and somehow a-physical. The memory was not stored in my head or chemistry, but above me ... "up there" someplace where my life waits for the last judgment. Hopefully that little memory of grace will get me through Purgatory a little more quickly. Happy New Year.

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Ps 51:9