snow, silence, & busy-ness

So, it snowed today. The first snowfall of the year . . . well, sort of, it did snow at the beginning of November one morning, but it was gone pretty much as fast as it came. I'm not a fan of most things to do with snow, but there is one thing about snow I like. We didn't get enough for it to be the case tonight or I'd be sitting on my deck with hot chocolate right now, not writing this.

My favorite thing about the first snowfall of the year is just to walk outside and see the world covered in white and silent. That first (significant) snowfall always seems to just silence the world around you for a while. It doesn't seem like there is anything happening around you. I love just enjoying that silence - the one time where it sounds like everything in our busy world stops - the noise stops, the running from one place to the next stops. At least, it seems like it stops for those first minutes or hours after a snowfall. It doesn't seem to last all that long . . . the silence . . . but it's there.

The first snowfall of the year always reminds me of the need to stop sometimes in our own busy lives - to take that time out to just stop and to silence the noise that makes up so much of our lives. In winter, the world stops creating new growth and takes a break. I think that is a good thing for us to consider in our own lives as well. We need to take time out to stop and to rest and to enjoy the silence. It's not something natural in our world, but it's so necessary. We need time to rejuvenate before the new growth of spring can begin in our lives, just as world needs winter before all the wonderful new growth of spring.

Seeing the snow today was good reminder of the need to make sure there are regular times of rest in my own life - whether those be longer times when I take a few days away from the busy-ness of my world and life or shorter times each day where I silence the noise of my world and cease the busy-ness for a time. Both are necessary. But I can easily get caught up in life and go for months without that happening, unless I'm intentional about making that happen - about scheduling time where I don't actually plan to do anything. It seems odd to say I have to schedule it, but, in reality, I would guess that is true for most of us. If we don't put those chunks of time on our schedule they never happen.