winter 2015

At last, snow! Is it perfect when it covers surfaces and yet is not enough to have to shovel? It’s Monday, an ordinary day, January 5, a new year. Watching the wind swirl light snow into mist clouds, I recall that no two snowflakes are alike. All that snow and each flake is unique. How can that be? We are so into the manufacturing ideal of uniformity (each product and package must be identical) that we miss the truth that even with our great technology no two sheets of paper, no two cans of soup, no two model T Fords are ever quite the same. It’s the way of the real world – the Creator’s artistic flare – no two stars or galaxies, we’re discovering, are the same. And with human beings even identical twins are not identical. That means each of us is totally unique – a once in a Universe expression of Divine creativity and love. Did you ever have the childhood fantasy “if only Dad had married a beautiful movie star, or Mom had fallen for a wealthy football player, I would be …” But, no, you would not be! The you of your existence depends completely on the two parents who brought you to birth and more than that even, consider your siblings, if any other sperm and egg had joined in the moment of your conception, you, the miracle of you, would not be here now, would never be, and all those through the ages conceptions that led to this moment would not be. We tend to see people, things, events as ordinary, but oh, how precious and unique and fragile and momentary each is. That beautiful snow swirl, a moment in time that will never come again, and I perhaps the only observer. Gift! Each being, each moment is a gift. I pray for you the ability to be present to and cherish the ordinary!  Happy New Year!  Carol Kandiko, CSA