Digging Out

With each slash of the snow shovel, I freed up one more inch of space, making room for my garage door to open so I could determine if I could drive out.

In less time than I thought it would take, (and more back pain than I anticipated) I was ready to put the car in reverse and attempt a test run down my driveway. “Yes,” I breathed a sigh of relief as I successfully made it to the street in front of my house, “freedom.”

The fear of being trapped inside the house dissipated, at least for the moment, for more snow was in the forecast.

It had been a long time since Mother Nature had handed us a snow like this one, 12-14 inches, with drifts higher than that in some places. Snow seemed to be everywhere, hiding the roads and sidewalks, settling on the doorsteps, entering the house on the paws of my two Schnauzers, who didn’t know what to make of snow that’s deeper than they are tall.

 “I’m with you boys,” I assured them, “it’s a nuisance to me too.”

The snow was beautiful to the eyes, but restrictive to the body, limiting my ability to walk to the mail box, much less travel to the grocery store or office.

“Just look at that virgin snow, untouched by anyone,” my wife said later as we gazed at the open field behind our house.

I couldn’t resist the temptation to embrace it, to walk out into it, down to the fence row where my back yard met the farmer’s field. All alone there---soothed by the howling wind, lured by it as if it were Sirens compelling me to walk further out--- it was tempting to fall into a trance as I surveyed how the wind had formed rivulet like channels in the snow on the sides of the knobs, the gusts not stopping at the foot of the knobs but swishing across the fields, pushing the white stuff right up to my boot tops, encircling me, riveting my feet to the ground.

With each difficult and wanton step, I edged closer into my little wilderness.

And then I laughed out loud because my awkward steps reminded me of the scene in movie, Father of the Bride, where Martin Short is trying to carry Steve Martin, and Short has that halting, hilarious gait because of Steve’s weight.

Lent, a season of spiritual reflection for many Christians that begins in the dead of winter and ends in the freshness of spring, is about freeing ourselves from the weight, the heaviness of the stuff we accumulate that keeps us from running the race we are meant to run.

It’s about recognizing what those temptations mean, as attractive as they can be, and how they can encumber us. They are often not totally bad and even have the appearance of beauty.  When you walk in them, they mainly slow you down and can make you look pretty silly, like me attempting to traipse with some degree of grace through the snow.

It just doesn’t work: a measure of sin and a smidgen of grace.

It’s either sin or grace.

Recognizing the difference requires discernment and doing something about it takes courage.

It’s easier to watch snow accumulate at your doorstep.

But sometimes you just have to take a shovel and start digging your way out.