The thaw ahead...

A thaw is on the way and winter is slowly releasing its grip one finger at a time. That's a good thing around these parts where spring, because of its scarcity, is a treasured commodity.

Those who've never lived where the snows flies horizontally propelled by cold winds screaming south from Canada may not realize that the charm of winter diminishes exponentially by its distance from Christmas. What's scenic and beautiful in a Currier and Ives sort of way on December 24th becomes an annoyance by the middle of January, veritably loathsome when March rolls around and capable of making decent Christians swear bloody oaths if it lasts to April, which it often does.

So when the warm winds start rolling up from Colorado and begin their path through Nebraska and the Dakotas to us we wait with anticipation and track them on the weather reports with an intensity that rivals brokers scanning stock tickers. That warm bubble of orange, and sometimes even red, on the weather maps is our beacon of hope, our sense that we can, even for a moment, shrug off the cold, see each other without sweaters and remember what grass looks like. People's moods actually improve and the slog leaves and bounce returns to our steps.

So this Thursday it may crack 30 degrees farenheit and by the weekend 40 and next week perhaps even 50. Every street will be wet with little rivers trickling down their sides. Roofs will reappear in patches with icicles growing and then finally dropping to the newly exposed lawn. Heat begets heat and with the insulating snow gone even the air will grow warmer and stay that way. By the end of March a few courageous tulips will already have stuck their heads above ground and the sidewalks will be open enough for kids to ride their bikes. People who huddled around their tables in the dead of winter with seed catalogs for consolation start thinking about real gardens and their faith returns. Birds stop huddling in whatever shelter they can find and start staking their claims to this tree or that.

Its always been that way. Winter, no matter how long it seems, gives way to spring and the intensity of winter amplifies the passion for its arrival. There's something in that all about life and death and resurrection and Pascha (Easter) but I'll let you decide what you think it may be.