Crazy quiet snow acoustics

First attempt at a blog post, cut me a little slack here...

Today was awesome. Not in your ordinary, everything-you-do-is-incredible kind of awesome, but just a mostly average day with a few really bright spots.  Work started off well, then the snow came...and of course my rear-wheel drive truck doesn't perform well in any kind of precipitation excluding rain, so that was a concern. But, the bank let us go at noon so I wrapped up my work and made a hasty departure with the help of my friend Brian's 4Runner.  Pad Thai at Noodles & Co with Brian, then home to take a walk with Matt (the roommate) and Annie (the labrador).  Mission: find, purchase dog food.  Ended up at the local pharmacy a couple of blocks from my house, and the woman who rung me up is the mother of one of the kids I used to coach football in Richmond.  Had not seen her or her son in a while, we had a pleasant little catching-up kind of chat, and it sounds like the family is doing well. Quickly exchanged my promises to shop again at the pharmacy and hers to tell her son I said hello, and a couple of sincere "take care"s and "Merry Christmas"es. Good stuff.  Later, having fed Annie, built a roaring fire, drank some Dr. Pepper and made some real headway into reading David Platt's Radical.  And it is.  Go read it. 

Matt and I walked through the snow to a neighbor's house (well, kind of--quarter mile or so) for dinner and a movie, he with his awesomely Gore-tex waterproof, "I can walk through a stream and my feet stay dry" hiking boots, and me with my plastic grocery bags nestled between my wool socks and New Balances.  I'm that kid.  Probably always will be.  The time with the neighbors was great--they're the kind of people who make you feel like family almost instantly, and she's the kind of cook who...well, let's just say I don't generally go putting plastic bags on my feet and walking through the snow for fun.  But the walk home is where it got really cool.

I've always been a sucker for snow, mostly because as a kid it meant getting out of school, playing outside all day, warm hot chocolate, the holidays, and family.  Nowadays with megacorporations staying open all the time, traffic, stress, and that three month period where you want to wash your car but don't because you know it will just get covered with salt in a day or so, it's easy to lose that little-kid, almost-Christmas excitement that accompanies snowfall. But tonight I discovered a new reason to love it--or maybe an old one, but definitely one that had previously gone largely unnoticed.  The sound....

As we were walking in the dark, I couldn't help but notice how muffled and quiet everything was.  The wind had died down but the air still had a nice crisp "bite" to it, and the only sound I could hear was the soft crunching of snow and ice under our feet as we walked.  My eyes were magnetically compelled to the sky, and the clouds had departed to reveal an equally clear, crisp view of more stars than I have seen in Richmond in a long time.  So there we were, a couple of (mostly) grown-up, white-collar corporate "dudes" who live just a few miles from the bustling city center, but with the starry sky and the numbing silence, it felt like we couldn't be further away from everything.  It was one of those rare moments of peace and contentment that many of us often lose sight of in our day-to-day lives.  Totally worth a little chill on my face and snow in my shoes.

So I've shedded a few layers and now I'm in the warm comfort of my home, but I can't get the amazing picture of how big and pefectly designed God's creation is.  As another year comes to a close, I began to consider how this one will likely go down as the most important in all of the 28 I've spent walking the earth.  If you know me, you know I've gone through some pretty incredible changes over the last year (more on that later), and as we were walking, soaking in the crazy quiet snow acoustics, I felt overtaken by an unbelievable rush of appreciation and gratitude for the many blessings I have received. 

I'm not sure if I'll make it into work tomorrow, or how I'll get there if I do, but that's a concern that can wait until the morning.  For now, I think I'll enjoy the silence and get some sleep.