Tonight's e-mail to Brett:

Brett,

Perhaps only fields of snow drag at my heels, perhaps only the mist rises from the snow in the dark, the lighted school sign creating a halo over the soccer field, perhaps the night itself rattles the branches full of crystallized water, the high tinkle of ice falling through wind. There is a silence in moonlight, the tall teeth of memory snap towards it without sound. What if all this beauty, perceived by the passing truck drivers only as snow, is as melt water darkening our pants from the knees down? We wade in memory, a frozen interruption in a cycle that flows. Does the season come on its own feet, or do we bring it, a cast iron key in a rusty lock? What exactly do we open?

Tonight Graham pointed out the mist and looking I saw it, and seeing I carved a whole with it, all those suspended droplets drifting between the certainty of gravity and the transience of clouds. Up to his ears in it, the dog, sniffing, smells more than I ever will, his neural net recording data, for what? To survive? To last long enough to transfer his seed? But this one is neutered, his function shifted towards the desires of humans, his only lasting influence, warm footprints across the frozen lake where I keep my sturgeon, the scale-less fish waiting for something larger than skin to enfold it.

This morning I waited for the curving flight of a swan, banking to the south, before I begin walking again. And the dog by then was at the end of his leash, nose in the snow, not aware of the large birds in the sky, not smelling their decent from the stars. Having spent my energy on talk and anger, having exhausted the city offices, our words too large for bureaucracy, I sought the morning, students passed us going to school, cars tailed each other towards the production of something measurable, and we slipped into the forest, the dog and I, thousands of tiny branches littering the blanket of snow, pocked with slush-balls shed by the old ones, God's own pruning service, this well evolved system, a tuned spring towards something always random.

Funny to hear the phrase, ‘out of integrity.' I think of burlap sacks tossed in a corner of the old cold cellar at Covenant Bible College, more potatoes than I had ever seen in one place. All our spiritual talk supported by roots and ground beef, the prairies howling with northern lights when we would walk in the evenings free from warmth.

Today I talked with Matt about smoking, brain development, the rule of law, and why I would not give him two dollars for guitar picks. He saved his cigarettes to sell, then saved one last one, the last one he hopes, before quitting, stuck through the hole in his ear. While I was talking to him, my mind raced ahead, wondering just how many words were enough. The analogy I used for obedience, he changed so that I would see why he doesn't trust me, why my experience is not enough. I looked into the dark then, saw the absence in him, the connection we both have with a fearful mystery, the imperfection of everything. Last night, we talked of the addict's journey, my point being that sometimes you can't do it on your own. His conviction that he can. Why do I feel we must surrender, give up control to the divine music? Why do I still believe that harmony is possible, even in this discordant world? The physicist on the PBS show we watched said that being smart didn't insure our survival as a species. Einstein didn't live longer than the rest of us. How much choice do we really have? Even these words I am picking out, are they from me, or somewhere random, somewhere out of sight, out of meaning, beyond thought? Like the swan flying without the knowledge of aerodynamics, like the beagle smelling people without knowing their names, like the rain transformed into something lighter, more beautiful, but colder... is it possible that in the end, it is not what we know that counts, but wordless witness to the grandeur of it all?

Richard

So as it turns out the fog rises from the snow all night and into the day. This morning Jackson and I stumped along amid the frozen lumps of snow and I came to the water park where in the summer children play, and there was a family, off in the field making a snow fort, their dog watching us. In the Park all the little fir cones dotted the snow, and paint ball splotches, and pee marks from the dogs. Now, at home, the sun has finally found a large enough hole in the clouds and the fog is forming, a luminous reminder of last nights moon silence. Tree branches outside my window begin to drip. The cat comes to bump me with his head, time to be fed. I feel my own hunger, now that my need for beauty has been satisfied.

Christmas eve, the dog is snoring beside me, all the Christmas lights are off, the dark surrounds the house filled with rain, tomorrow Jesus will be born again.

Out among the starry expanses there is a gas giant forming with no-one to watch but God. In the church service tonight I watched a little girl rocking in her seat, not listening to the singing, thinking about something else, her presents? Surly not gas giants. I looked at that little head, her eyes looking off into space, and I wondered if God really is tuned in to all the brain states, peeping at the prayers emanating from children's heads.

This Ground of our Being, the being of little girls, us all being who we are, more significant than planets. Jesus as a child, daydreaming about a new earth with new rules. His kingdom come.