Crystal Leaves On a Frozen Bay
It’s Advent. I think of God coming among us as a Child, Jesus, born through the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem. But I also ponder the final coming of Jesus at the end of time.
Pope Benedict XVI:Yet there is not only the final coming at the end of time: in a certain sense, the Lord always wants to come through us. And he knocks at the door of our hearts: are you willing to give me your flesh, your time, your life?
This is the voice of the Lord, who also wants to enter our epoch; he wants to enter human life through us. He also seeks a living dwelling place in our personal lives. This is the coming of the Lord. Let us once again learn this in the season of Advent: the Lord can also come among us.It’s early December, and my longing for Him to come to me unites with my longing for hockey on ice-covered ponds and lake bays. Lord, maker of the universe, you're the best at making perfect ice, in ways my imagination can never imagine.Plenty of awful mild weather swept through November into December until the third week of Advent, Guadete Sunday. Latin for rejoice.
The weather gurus warned of a multi-day temperature plunge to -22 C at night with a daytime -15 C.I awoke early on Dec 18 like I’d been given a Divine nudge. Ice flashed through my mind.Consistently cold temperatures without snow, plus calm nights, are the ingredients for perfect ice. With that in place, morning prayer filled my heart with rejoicing. His desire called me outside like a command, “Go, it’s time to pray and play.”I headed to the south end of Papineau Lake, ON unsure if enough ice had formed in such a short time, The lake’s south bay, with its shallow stretch of water, was the ideal part of the lake.Arriving to find a frozen bay as expected, my startled eyes found something I’d never seen in over 50 years of pond hockey.What seemed like cotton balls or clumps of feathers covered the entire ice sheet. My scientific mind and learning had nothing there to explain this sight.
Play Time
My desire to skate eventually interrupted the exploration. As I laced my skates, I looked around in awe of God’s creative genius, pondering His desire to have fun with what He had already made.“How can I skate over your beautiful crystal leaves, I asked. “Go, I want to skate with you," he whispered.
Testing My Stick Handling.
Crystal Leaves Gallery
Search For Ice
Every December, I search for early freezing on sheltered lake bays or roadside ponds before the snow comes. In March and early April, rain often provides arena-like floods for temperatures ready to make their last winter plunge.Skates and stick are always with me, because out there with Him I’m transformed. He lives in me, in every stride and wrist movement.In March, 2018, as I traveled home from my youngest daughter’s volleyball tournament I passed the pond pictured below.
Ice Calling
Glass ice sprawls across the bay
calling me to come and play.
fingers lacing at minus nine.
Rising in the silent air, steel on my feet;
every cell now craving to fly on this sheet.
As the light breeze tickles the pines,
I gaze at their playful movements,
With hand under my chin leaning on my stick, I pray
“O Lord, the Psalmist played for you on his harp,
Let me play for you with my skates and stick.”
Right leg drives steel into a frozen bay
sending ice crystals singing in the air.
Each stride in silky rhythm sends my heart
into pounding applause of gratitude.Wrists and hands dance with puck on tape.
In full flight my torso sends a blade into pivot action,
skating backwards now, puck still on tape.
He moves in me, incarnate with every stride
skates, stick, and puck
in unified motion
like planets circling the sun.Slowing into a long gliding arc I stop,
captured by beautiful sweeping arches
carved on a frozen water canvas.Hand under my chin, resting on my stick
eyes closed, in silent stillness, I pray:
“Thank you, I love you,
Thank you for being here with me
You are everything.”
Laces loose, stick at my side
Creation rests in His presence.
March Holds Winter's Hand
Light stands proudly on the evening horizon pushing the long, dark winter nights away. Joining in are the sun’s soothing rays, massaging tired limbs with a warm touch as skates carve deeper into the softening ice, now making the annual retreat from rinks, ponds and canals.March is not rude or aggressive in its pursuit of spring and summer. She holds winter’s hand, gently escorting him away from his prominent place in the Canadian landscape and our hearts. She showcases winter’s white grandeur in the bright rays of the returning sun. March is a kind mother who takes winter away slowly from her clingy winter-loving children like me.March knows that hockey players with our long strides on glassy sheets of ice under the lights of a silent rink in the woods will soon be gone. The magical ring of a puck hitting the crossbar will quickly be silenced.March knows we experience loss, and knows how to introduce the soothing embrace of spring and summer.But March especially knows that she is the instrument of the One who created all things. She is the instrument of the One I thank and praise for the beautiful gift of winter, for the excitement in my heart when a winter storm approaches, when the skies are heavy and dark like the Colorado low that came our way building it’s arsenal for a hit of close to 40 cm of white gold. I prayed, hoped, and waited with the same excited glow I had as a kid in Toronto. Crystal flakes filled the sky as if falling from the playful fingers of angels.As I yield to March I yield to the truth that all things are passing, all that we touch and see that comes from the One who is Beauty.O Lord, You are eternally You, forever present to us. And though our bodies will one day lie beneath tomorrow’s falling snow, we who have loved will rest eternally in You.
You, who knit me in my mother’s womb entered this moment, and when you come into my life, everything is peace beyond my understanding. You are always with me whenever I go to a remote place to pray and play.Yours, O LORD, are grandeur and power, majesty, splendour, and glory. For all in heaven and on earth is yours; yours, O LORD, is the sovereignty; you are exalted as head over all. (1 Chronicles: 29: 11)
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