Why Is Snow

I started wondering why as I watched this afternoon’s mini-blizzard through the window. Snow in is the category of things that I accept without understanding why it exists. It shares that growing category with a lot of other things like moss, mosquitos, and lutefisk.

I grew up in Southern California where I never needed to wonder why is snow. I knew why. It existed for the pure pleasure of kids who, if they could convince an adult to drive an hour or two to find the stuff, could play in it long enough to get uncomfortably cold and damp, and then return home to shorts and t-shirt weather. I have always enjoyed my snow at a convenient distance, so I can choose it - or not. Now I live in the hilly Northwest where snow, though admittedly pretty, is inconvenient. And because it is inconvenient, I wonder why.

It is, of course, a self-centered question, and it is embarrassingly true that I mostly ask why of things that are inconvenient. I didn’t ask why the sun was shining yesterday or why my neighbor’s now-frozen camellias were so pretty. It’s the inconvenient stuff I wonder about. Could it be that there is more at stake than what pleases me? Young Elihu reminded Job that God says to the snow, “Fall on the earth.” And God seems to agree that the storehouses of the snow are under His control. Could it be that God actually
likes the stuff in spite of the fact that it apparently didn’t exist before the fall?? Hmmm, I wonder.... Why is snow?
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