Winter Magic

The iron-gray snow clouds gently sprinkled fluffy flakes upon my cheeks and eyelashes, like kisses from a doting mother, as I dragged my battered orange sled behind me, toward home.

The neighborhood kids and I had burned through the overcast daylight, sledding on Clark's Hill—the unparalleled sledding idyll adjacent to the old Clark house—until twilight heralded the end of the unplanned, but welcomed, vacation day.

I was contentedly exhausted after a day of racing down the short, steep hill in all manner of positions and games, only to trudge back up, in our suffocating snowsuits, to do it again.

Most often, I dreaded returning home, but not today. Something was in the air...a spiritual magnificence that was as close as my own breath. As I stood amid the wintry panorama, a sense of harmony, peace, and hope began to spring up like a font within me. Serenity settled upon my soul like a thick, warm blanket, and I experienced Home in the truest sense. The Spirit knew me. The Spirit Loved me.

I had no name for this Presence, and it never rested upon me for long...but when it did, I knew a solace that was both alien and familiar, like recognizing a stranger as my dearest friend after a long period of amnesia.

Though I mourned this winter magic once I'd lost my childhood innocence, I can sometimes sense Her...waiting like a nurturing Mother to bless my face, once more, with doting kisses.