the beauty of quiet

I have just walked home through the snow, and it struck me as I was walking just how beautiful the world is when it's blanketed in white. Maybe I'm struck by it, because the way I walk home is not pretty - a couple of fairly nondescript streets of terraces, a dirt track between high hedges, a (usually muddy) path through some bushes and then along the main road, which is only a stones throw from the continual rumble of the A1. On a normal day I'm far more likely to notice the rubbish, or the fact that a lot of the bushes are either dead or dying; but not today. Today everything was beautiful. 

The moment I really noticed it was turning off the main road onto the "path through the bushes". It was dark so the two lamps on the path were on, casting a golden glow down the dark path, and as I walked along I was surrounded by snowy trees, the glow of the lamps and the gentle crunch of my boots on the snow. The sounds of a snowy night just add to the beauty, because when it's snowy it's not just the ground which is blanketed, but noises are too. The whole world seems to be sleeping, and we have the joy of wandering quietly through it, not disturbing, just watching and wondering. A little bit like Lucy when she first steps into Narnia.

And it wasn't just the world which was quiet, but I was quiet too. The wonder I felt was like a whisper, the joy a gentle ripple, a space of quiet in the midst of the storm. The world can't always be covered in snow, noises hushed, harsh realities hidden from sight, but God gives us these times; times to remember that in the midst of the noise of the world, he can always be heard when we enter the quiet of his presence, listening for the still, small voice.