Persistent Miracle

Snow in July. A blizzard so thick, they can’t see the mountains across the valley. This news comes to me from the Brooks Range the day after I leave for Saskatchewan. Not surprising, of course, being so far north, but startling still – and a stark reminder that summer, and all good things, come to an end more quickly than we ever wish.

I was born in the middle of the middle of the middle -- June 15, 1950 -- the middle day of the middle month of the middle of the 20th century. What I hadn’t considered until recently was that in 1950, we still lived in the shadow of World War II. I also hadn’t realized that I was born a mere 85 years after the Civil War, and 65 years after my great-grandparents traveled by wagon train to Oregon. While in a previous century, these things happened quite recently. If you add to this history, events that have happened since my birth -- civil rights, John, Martin and Bobby, a walk on the moon, this war and that, my transition from a small farm in Saskatchewan to the edge of the Arctic Ocean, worldwide financial success and failure, the Polar Bear’s pending extinction -- an astounding amount has been packed into my short life time plus 85 years. A mere ‘Tick’ from the clock of time.

Life seems slow as I live it forward. I am not aware of time passing so much as I see things around me that have changed so dramatically I am forced to accept that I too must have changed. While I don’t feel old, I see that my daughter is 35 and my Mom who’s 81 is in poor enough health to require full time care in a nursing home. I am in the middle; we are each 23 years apart. I’ve lived 58 years, and there’s a limit to the time I have left before - Tock. And my end may come any day, just like a July blizzard north of the Brooks Range.

If I could freeze frame a moment in a snowflake’s life as it drifted through the middle of the sky in the middle of the valley in the Brooks Range, I would celebrate each unique, spinning kaleidoscope reveling in its bright moment between heaven and earth. The elegant forms of frozen water are a natural part of the largely unseen, but persistent, miracle we call the water cycle.

Miracles happen whether or not we are watching. So much of life occurs outside of our awareness, even those things that we see, we don’t really ‘see.’ This is also true for my days. While somewhat of a blur overall, I can seek out bright moments between heaven and earth. I am blessed by the elegant flow of family, friends, animals, flowers, clouds and sunsets that make up the largely unseen, but persistent miracle that is my life.