aerasio

Reflections

The day before Christmas eve... it was chilly out. The snow fell in big puffed up blotches of white that covered the sky and blotted out light. It was transient, a fragmentary moment, like a leaf that flutters in the wind, only to plunge after a sudden gust, plummeting to the dirty ashphalt of the street to be trampled and forgotten in the mists of five minutes ago. It was just another moment in time... yet somehow different...

The snow came furiously, in torrents, as if to make up for the dry spell that the Twin Cities had felt for the past three months I had been there. Faith was jumping excitedly, exclaiming "there's snow! there's snow". The rest of us smiled and contentedly looked on, going about the business of setting our new house up. Serene and tranquil, what better way was there to spend the weekend before Christmas? Probably something if I bothered to think of it, but I didn't, after all, I was content, that scene was enough for me.

It looked like the snow would go on for awhile, but I got up with a camera and took a shot anyway. A good idea as it turned out, for the snow stopped falling ten minutes later and didn't come again except in tiny flurries, almost insignificant in comparison with the snow storm before it. It was a funny feeling though, here was I, a young, inexperienced teenager living for the first time in a foreign land seeing snowfall for the first time and... everything was, well... almost disappointing. All of us have certain dreams, certain aspirations and expectations, certain ideal visions of what certain things are like. Like a desert Oasis, a paradise of shade and refreshment in the middle of searing sands and blazing sun. Or the picturesque sunset on a beach in Hawaii, with the sun setting in the distant blue ocean, casting lazy orange glows on the whole sky. Here was one of those ideal visions right in front of me, fresh billowy snowfall, only it wasn't so ideal, there was no soft dramatic music, or wonderful spell of insight. It was just an ordinary moment, a little colder mayhap, but there it was, and it passed without incident. Another ideal vision, crushed under the foot of reality, another hardening of the soul, a preparation for the underwhelming truth of life.

Yet, I was grateful, for it is in these moments that we learn what life is about. Hollywood schools us to believe in the 'Great Romance', and 'Grand Adventure'. Novels and Pop Culture make us look for our own 'Happily ever after'. A vain search it seems to me, because our lives will always be filled with a vague uncertainty. One that can only be filled with belief in God, and contentment with what his grace has presented us with. Mayhap, that is hard to swallow, maybe I don't fully believe it yet either, because in my heart of hearts, and maybe in all of ours too, we all want to believe the dream, even if we know it doesn't exist...

Perhaps one day I will learn to be content with the ordinary. Perhaps one day we will all see our hopes and wants for what they are, and see the world for what it is, not what we want it to be. The road is long and winding, but I'm taking small steps day by day, living out the ordinary moments of my life... because thats what life is about.

Real Living.

So said Aerasio at 22:59