DailySusan Humor Blog

OPEN TO BEAUTY

I was whining about our foot of snow to a relative who lives in the Valley of the Sun in Arizona. She said they missed the snow down there on the desert, the blinding beauty, the crunch underfoot, the way it piles up on the branches, even the smell, which reminded her of ice skates. Since they don't get snow, they go find it:

''Sometimes we take a day and go north to the snow to play in it with sleds and inner-tubes . . . take chili and crackers and rum for antifreeze. And a couple of times we have gone north to cut Christmas trees with permits from the Forest Service, bringing them home in a pickup truck convoy. Sometimes the kids bring home a truckload of snow to make a snowman in the front yard. Melts pretty fast.''

Look what they go through to experience snow, and yet we complain about it. To us, it's an annoyance; to them, it's an opportunity to live life more fully.

The same relative described a recent detour on a trip to see a distant friend, a detour that would have scared most people:

''We were driving in the mountains, got off track and had to take a tiny thread of a road for quite a ways. We could see signs by the side of the road and knew that weather conditions must close that road frequently. It edged a towering canyon, with fast water rushing over huge rocks and almost vertical mountains on each side that disappeared above us into the mist. Breathtaking, and at times knuckle-whitening where the road was very narrow and rocks and dirt fell from the side over the edge and down, down, down. But we weren't ever really afraid. If we had never seen a single friend on this trip, that stretch of road would have been worth the whole trip.''

When you're open to beauty and adventure, you're closed to fear and irritation. Thanks, Cuzz. I needed that.

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Prayer request: An older bride has two concerns: the best man, the groom's adult son, has suffered a knee injury and has trouble standing. We pray that he'll not ''go over,'' which might make the wedding a little too memorable. Also, the bride has been having serious jaw pain. She hopes it'll subside until after the wedding, when she'll be on her new husband's dental plan at work. A wacky combination? Yep. Does God mind? Nope. He's used to it. (James 1:17)