Whispering Winds Blog

Remake me as an awe-fascinated primitive,
de-adult me so as to wonder like a child …
[from Edward Hays, A BOOK OF WONDERS, p. 336]

The picture above is my great niece, Katie. I snapped the picture at our family Christmas celebration in 2001. Katie is in high school now. I hope she keeps her sense of awe and wonder forever.

It snowed last week for the first time this season. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t delighted by it. Well, maybe for a split second I noticed the beauty of the fluffy white blanket on the bushes outside my bedroom window. But that tiny moment of delight was quickly replaced with feelings of, “Oh no, not already!”

For the last forty years or so I’ve been adult enough to not appreciate snow – at least not publicly. But privately, I’ve always thought snow is beautiful – whether it’s coming to earth in giant snowflakes or it’s silently covering everything outside with a pure white blanket of sparkly fluff. The first snowfall of the season has always given me childlike delight.

Always. Until this year. What happened? Do I need a new coat? A new pair of boots? New tires on my car? Or, do I need to bring out my Christmas music to get me in the mood?

I really don’t know what’s wrong this year. Have I finally become an adult completely? If so, I think I want to pray to become “de-adulted” as Edward Hays suggests.

After all, JOY is my special word for 2014. If I’ve become too much of an adult to experience JOY at the season’s first snowfall, I really need some serious “de-adulting.”