I really enjoy snow: it’s a reminder that the right conditions can produce something magical. It’s like a little bit of the invisible becomes visible when it snows, and blankets everything equally with its covering.

Maybe the season of Christmas is like that too: given the right conditions in our heart, something special will appear. It’s not always easy cultivating those right conditions, and there’s a lot of pressures, both internal and external, pulling us this way and that. A quiet preparation seems far out of grasp, and then the moment seems to pass.

That first Christmas was like that too: the hustle and bustle of travel and census. Late night arrival, problems finding a hotel room, baby on the way. Yet somehow, in the midst of it all, light broke through, because of openness to the moment. An openness that existed in the midst of everything else, that didn’t deny it, but transformed it. Like a snowfall, the invisible became visible.

Many blessings during this season, and all throughout the year. Let’s both plan to look up for that snow falling from the heavens, and let it blanket us in the moment and place we find ourselves. Merry Christmas!