Snow fell heavily Saturday night. By Sunday morning, 25 cm (for metric deniers, that’s 10 inches) covered the ground.
I shouldn’t say that snow fell heavily. Snow can’t fall heavily. Each snowflake weighs next to nothing. Snow is, in fact, frozen air. What we call humidity, the invisible water vapour in the air, freezes. And sifts down. Sometimes gently. Sometimes viciously, as tiny needles of ice in a blizzard.
Chemists speak of three states of matter – solid, liquid, and gas. A snowflake is a gas that has turned into a solid without passing through the liquid state. The gas itself has frozen. But it still weighs exactly what it did before it became solid.
Then molecules of frozen gas bond together. In crystals. Which form complex six-pointed patterns. It is often claimed that no two snowflakes are identical. That may or may not be true. More importantly, it’s not provable. Nevertheless, you could probably spend your entire life examining snowflakes without ever finding two exact duplicates.
And then these infinitely variable patterns of water crystals fall from the sky, the weight of each one almost too small to measure… Yet together they can bring 200-horsepower cars to a standstill, break branches off trees, collapse roofs and warehouses.
If they’re so light, I wonder, why do my muscles hurt so much after shovelling my driveway?

Cumulative effects
Snowflakes are a lesson in cumulative effects. A single action may have imperceptible impact; an accumulation of individual actions can change history.
Individual protests against the Vietnam war carried little weight; a million protesters in Washington broke an administration.
One black woman refused to give up her seat on a bus; millions of marchers took up her cause and toppled discriminatory laws.
One man died on a cross for daring to live differently; two billion followers today shape the world’s ethics.
If there are miracles in this world, the water that snowflakes are made of must be one of them. The miracle is not that Jesus walked on water. The miracle is the water he walked on.

Moe than the sum of its parts
Water consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen -- one of the strongest chemical bonds known. No other chemicals can split its components apart. Yet water is utterly unlike its component elements. Hydrogen is highly flammable – remember the Hindenberg? Oxygen ignites anything. Yet water disproves the argument that the whole is the sum of its parts. Water is the exact opposite of its components -- it extinguishes flames.
Water is paradoxical. We cannot live without it. Sometimes, we cannot live with it. Few things are more destructive than a flood. If ocean levels rise, the most valuable real estate on earth will re-enact Atlantis.
Maybe all miracles are also paradoxes.
Water is the closest thing we have to a universal solvent. We flush it through our industries, our kitchen sinks, our toilets. When epidemics strike, we wash bacteria off our hands.
Yet bacteria originated in water. Without water, life itself would not have been possible. When we search for life in space, we search for evidence of water.
Water may be the ultimate miracle.
I try to remember that as more snowflakes start drifting down out of the sky.
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Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
        To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN

My cousin Michael Parmenter, a mathematician, wrote about last week’s column on life’s transitions, “I appreciated the way you blended probability into today's Soft Edges. The idea that repeated events are independent is difficult for many people to accept. Although you don't get many comments from me, I do enjoy reading your columns.”

Wayne Irwin doesn’t write often either: “Happy New Year, Jim. And thank you so much for your ongoing reflections on our daily and yearly 'grind'. I appreciate your perspective. Like Meals on Wheels it delivers and feeds.”

Isabel Gibson: “A good piece on transitions -- things do sneak up (or away) on us. I sometimes find that the comments connect in odd ways. Who would have guessed that Charles Hill in TX and I in Ontario share a love of the Pacific Northwest?”

Cliff Boldt wrote about those imperceptible transitions: “I like that notion of change. It is probably more accurate than looking for an ‘aha’ moment to take place.”

June Blau said that the column “reminds me of a series of books by Thomas Cahill whose themes are 'the hinges of history.'”

David Gilchrist: “I too believe that most (if not ALL) our important transitions are more gradual than we realize. You mention Paul's conversion on the Damascus Road; I am convinced that it was not a spur-of-the-moment event at all. He had been persecuting the Christians for some time, and couldn't fail to notice the tremendous courage and conviction with which they accepted his violence. It must have frustrated him tremendously to see that he was not ‘getting through to them’ as he expected to; but they were getting through to him! On the Road to Damascus, he finally capitulated. That seems to be the way it worked for me, from a pretty ‘literalist’ youth to a John Spong advocate.”
David also had some thoughts about gifts: “The one thing no one mentioned yet in the replies this week, is one of our favourite gifts each Christmas: gift cards -- especially to restaurants, giving us lots of choice. At 85 and 87, we still like to eat out when we go to the city for doctor's appointments, theatre, etc. The other rather welcome gift for seniors is the trays of candies and chocolates (for those not diabetic), or nuts (for those without that allergy), or cheeses (for those who are not lactose intolerant). But you do have to be careful which you are giving to whom -- and that sometimes takes a bit of research.”

Tom Watson mused, “Transitions are, as you suggest, more gradual than we generally assume. They're similar to the 45-year-old musical artist who suddenly becomes an overnight sensation. What is often overlooked are the 20 years of slugging it out in relative obscurity before being ‘discovered.’
“If 'Damascus Road' musicians were possible, I'd have been a master pianist about 65 years ago. I had the vision, lacked the technique. Sigh!”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

The psalm for the first Sunday after the Epiphany – some treat the Epiphany as the unveiling of the infant Jesus to the Magi, and some as the unveiling of the Messiah at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan – is Psalm 29. Both themes seem to me to apply. In biblical times, a sojourn in the wilderness was supposed to help people clear their heads and come face-to-face with God. In our times, it's more likely to be a crisis that shatters the stability of our ordered lives. 

1   Trust God--don't pin your faith to human capabilities. 
2   Science and technology, wealth and popularity--
These will all pass away. 
Only the Holy One is worthy of lasting worship. 
3   Fame and fortune will not save you when the tempest strikes. 
The winds whirl in; waves crash upon your shore.
4   Houses collapse like cards; corporations crumble; assets become worthless.
5   Branches break off; mighty empires are uprooted.
6   In a storm, you are as naked and helpless as the day you were born. 
Your possessions, your wealth, your status are useless to you. 
7   There is just you and the power of God. 
8   Before God's anger, you tremble like a twig in a tempest. 
9   All that you depended upon is stripped away, like the last leaves from autumn trees. 
10   Before God's majesty, you face your own frailty. 
Nothing can save you--except God. 
11   Only God is greater than every human crisis. 
Only God can sustain you through the storm, 
and carry you to the calm on the other side. 

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah – the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Alan Reynold's weekly musings, punningly titled “Reynolds Rap,” write reynoldsrap@shaw.ca
Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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