December 17, 2013
The Third Week in Advent

Today it is snowing again here in Connecticut.  Our grandchildren will be dismissed early from school, and they will head out into this winter day with joy.  For us who fear slips and the falls on hidden pavement, snow is not such a pleasure any more.   For children, it is still magic.   They will come over to our house, and instead of sitting in front of the fire, they will want to go outside and build a snow queen!

A few nights ago we stopped at a small local pizza place for an easy dinner.   Outside on the walk, someone had already constructed the first snowman of the season.    Armless, he still met us with a big smile.  He seemed to say, "There are reasons for gladness, even in our New England winter."     I smiled, too.   And I thought of another creator who decided to make a likeness out of the stuff of earth.   The great story of the world's beginning in Genesis 2 describes God walking through the fields on a misty morning, then kneeling down and scooping up the wet dirt.   Forming the mud into the shape of a human being--little arms and legs, a face, a heart--God breathes into that new creature the breath of life.   I am told that the human's name, Adam,  means "mud creature."   If it does mean that, I think God uttered the name without a bit of condescension, but instead said it with overwhelming, tender love.    For Adam was made in God's image, which means that something about Adam-- and every blessed one of us--is holy, wondrous, loving and beloved. 

Maybe instead of "Mud Creature," our name should be "Star Creature," to reflect our awesome cosmic beginning.   Carl Sagan, the astronomer and author of Cosmos, reminds us that our DNA, our teeth and blood--every physical bit of us--was formed out of the matter of collapsing stars.   "We are made of starstuff," he says.   And so is that snowman outside the pizza place.   Made in our image, and, in a sense, in God’s image, too: smiling, joyful, happy to be alive.   That's why we make snowmen:  to practice making the world in our image.    And while we do that, we can believe that something that was shining over a stable in
Bethlehem in still in us.

Snowman

Smile at me tonight,
funny man,
your face staring out
at a world you will inhabit
just for a moment.
You and I are made
of stars and earth,
and I would give you arms
to hold it all,
or to give some kind of blessing
to the ones who pass you by
too busy to feel joy.
I would give you a heart
to love your bit of time,
to wonder at the loveliness
of this deep and star-struck night,
dusted with snow.
I would give you a heart
and pray that it would not be broken.
But this could not be so.
For if we are all made
in the Creator's image,
then a broken heart
must be yours and mine as well.
It comes with love.
But tonight we smile,
for goodness' sake,
and for the heart that loves us
even when our time is done.

--Timothy Haut, December 17, 2013