Have you seen the ice? The smoothness stretching almost endlessly? The smoothness which, when the sun pops out, becomes a blindingly bright reflector of the 93 million-miles-away yet still so powerful light filled rays. Have you seen it? Ice? Rays of sun? Glinting back into sky and vision?
True, we’ve had a stretch of snow filled, wind-blown, dang-cold weather—but look at what we get as a result! The beauty of God’s creation seen in polished mirror-like and inches deep-enough ice draws skaters along the North Shore, in Duluth, across on the South Shore.
Have you seen them?
Groups of ice-skaters, close to shore for wise-safety sake, but spotted here and there.
And that ice? It is a marvel, you know. True, the cold this year seems unexpected, and temps seem extra low. Yet, what we have this year would have seemed average, not so many decades ago. Talk to folks who hail from Cook County’s Big Bay, Chicago Bay, Grand Marais harbor.
When the ice was right enough (not common, but occurring frequently enough that closets held skates in great expectation) there was a close-shaved smoothness made by whirling wind-driven snow. And then? It was a dash to get outside, whether temps are +10 or -30. To be there, outside, gliding, gliding, gliding, mile unto mile. Ahhhhh…you’d look outside, see it, and say, “Here it is! Let’s get going!”
To those who know those decades ago more-common deeper cold, deeper-snow, there is awareness that it brought good things for the good of God’s creation. There was the chance to skate (or walk carefully) on top of Lake Superior and look down easily into its treasure trove of beauty. There was the chance to hear ice moving, making new terrain.
The chance to see in the greatness of the Creation of God, intricacies to muse over.
This Sunday at Trinity Lutheran in Hovland we will sing Psalm 99: “The Lord is high, above all people…Proclaim the greatness of the Lord …for God is the Holy One.” It’s so easy for us to forget that the greatness of the Lord is seen in unexpected ways, by often unexpecting eyes: in shiny shining ice, bouncing blasts of heat-from-sun energy that warms. And in appreciating cold-cold, windy-wind, and ice thick enough to skate as it forms ice bridges for critters to bound upon toward new territory.
For those who skate outdoors on small ponds or near-to-shore bays of Lake Superior, there is a freedom in the movement of the skates, in the reflection of sun on ice, in seeing clearly down into what lies below the surface.
And that freedom can remind us of God’s presence in creation, of the Holy Spirit urging us to love one another as we skate across barriers between us and what is beneath our feet, reminding us, who are to be a reflection of God’s care, and of Jesus’ care, so that we freely see one another with new eyes, and give what is good for another.
2nd Corinithians in the New Testament reminds us: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us…seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image…”
Go, look outside; be outside. Notice (as if any of us could miss it) the reflecting beauty of the ice, and of the solidly sharing ways we can be with one another. In these marvels, God’s creation shows signs of God’s renewing, for all to see. Thanks be to God!
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.
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