It snowed last night.
After stumbling out of bed to start the coffee maker, I opened the blinds around the house to find a perfect blanket of snow had appeared over everything outside. It’s beautiful.
I’m watching birds play in the snow at my bird feeder while they fight for position at the feeder. It’s beautiful.
Such a simple thing, nature, the weather. Simple, yes, but also a poignant reminder of the beauty in this world. Our world, our little rock that spins through the galaxy at a maddening pace, is chock full of beauty. I guess I needed that reminder.
My thoughts then turned to the ways in which nature or the weather can be the opposite of beautiful. Hurricanes, tornadoes, murder hornets, etc…so many ways in which the world can be ugly and scary and deadly. Even in these frightening and destructive examples, I then thought, there can be beauty. Especially in the aftermath.
It made me think of this quote from Fred Rodgers:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
People are a lot like the world around us. Some can be callous or cruel. Some are narcissistic and power hungry. Others are kind and nurturing. They’re beautiful from the inside out. Many just want a better world for everyone.
The world is complex.
People are complex.
It snowed last night.
And right now, it’s absolutely perfect and beautiful. It will start melting as the day goes on. When I let my dogs out into the backyard, they’ll trample through it. The birds at the birdfeeder have already muddied the snow around the floor of it.
I’ll remember the initial perfection, however, and the much-needed reminder that this world can be, and is, a beautiful place. Sometimes the people are beautiful too, from the inside out, which, in my opinion, is the best kind of beautiful.