Prima Nix!

Looking out of the window today during the Midday Office, I noticed the smallest flecks of white drifting from the darkened sky... and so the long-forecast snow had arrived in Cambridge; the first snow fall of winter, one month before Christmas! Even now as I write this, the snow has been falling steadily and is becoming heavier. It never fails to amaze me, this miracle of nature we call snow. I remember trying to explain this phenomenon to my students in the Philippines and found it quite impossible to help them imagine gentle flakes of snow falling from the heavens. Only a fortnight ago, I came across a book with electro-magnetic microscopic photos of individual snow flakes, and they are indeed beautiful and symmetrical, more delicate than gossamer lace. Truly, nothing can surpass God's inventiveness and beauty in His creation!

Of course, snow can spell treacherously dangerous roads for many and other more unpleasant things and I pray for those who have to travel in such inclement conditions, especially the elderly... But something about seeing snow fall brings out the child in me and this charming little rhyme below from 'The House at Pooh Corner' by A. A. Milne was pointed out to me as a worthy little ditty with which to celebrate the first snow fall of the year.

"The more it
SNOWS-tiddely-pom,
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.

And nobody
KNOWS-tiddely-pom
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
Are
Growing"