January 27, 2006

Snow Angels

In 2nd grade Mrs. Sullivan's curriculum included "The Making of Snow Angels," and since we lived in Denver, there was considerable opportunity for homework.

It's simple: Dress warmly. Lie on your back, right on top of the cleanest, whitest, flattest snow you can find. Usually a back yard or a first period playground is best. Stretch your arms down by your sides and then swoosh them up above your head so your arms leave the impression of angel wings in the snow.

I practiced well and often, finally perfecting the image of a cupid-sized angel in our back yard. Mom helped a lot. As did my cousin Lassie, who was the most beautiful babysitter I had even seen. But that's another story.

The hardest part was getting up from the snow without messing up the angel. That took a lot of patience and balance, "angel gifts," Lassie said.

Neither Patience nor Balance is at the top of my DNA chain. Both are skills I have had to learn from mentors like Lassie. And from one of my favorite people: Uncle Mo.

Mo and I married sisters, Becky and Brenda, Minnesota farm girls who loved making snow angels, and who loved finding perfect snow. Mo was a photographer, an artist gifted with Patience and Balance, a mentor who taught by modeling.

He led me to Mount Evans, where we photographed mountain goats. To Electric Peak, where we sat still till the Bighorn Sheep came within camera range. And to Yellowstone National Park, where October snow drapes the elk, and the meadows, in pure white powdery blankets of snow. Perfect snow for making angels.

One October, at the edge of Norris Geyser Basin, Uncle Mo taught me patience and balance as we sat quietly awaiting a 7-point Bull Elk who was slowly bugling his way up the meadow toward us. While waiting, we noticed that God was spending His time blending steam from the boiling geyser with the cold afternoon air to create a forest of snow angels, each one bowing in worship of their Creator.

It was silent at the edge of the geyser, except for the whoosh of escaping steam, the pflumph of falling snow, the honking of a Trumpeter Swan, and the distant bugles of the bull. I listened, and discovered that my whispered "Hallelujahs" fit well with the music of God's cathedral. If there had been a flat spot, I would have leaned back and added one more snow angel to the choir.

"Praise the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty heavens...Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord." Psalm 150

Dick Duerksen
Assistant Vice President
Mission development
Florida Hospital