Winter

The white blanket folded over the earth until the night became day in bright luminescence. Trees dripped 10 karat ice crystals and adorned long branches in slender tendrils of sparkling beads which almost touched the snow covered ground. The glittering light reached into dark recesses of the woods until the world magically glowed with tranquility.

Under the frozen scene, life coursed. Swirling pools of mountain water teeming with fish continued to flow down ancient paths. Some animals burrowed deeper into the earth seeking warmth while others continued sleeping in oblivious hibernation.

Fall explodes in color but the snowy winter landscape exposes the brilliant hues of new beginnings. Without prejudice, all is buried. The sky is colored in softness, and the world stops and revels as snowflakes burst onto the frigid wonderland. On the surface, time stands still and for a few moments, a few hours, a day and a night; we are at peace.

Forced into rest, we lie under billowing goose down comforters and look for ourselves in frozen reflections. In our self contained snow globe, hearts beat in wonder that all things are possible when we too are blanketed in virgin white.

Freedom

In the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” I wonder how many are truly free and how they journeyed. Freedom may sound free but comes with a cost and is paid in commodities uncommonly traded. Can we ever gain freedom from the past and hold its’ joy fragile as a wounded baby bird in tender hands. Endurance stories of family histories shared through generations of slavery are often repeated in quests for freedom, but what of familial histories holding fast to unspoken tales of alcoholism, drug addictions and suicides. Who shares individual chapters about suffrage through loss and chaos? Who hears the voices of inner demons who don’t allow the grace of forgiveness to be heartfelt? What screams are being heard behind the facades of smiling faces?

Perhaps we are the brave because we are born to conquer - accepting challenges as they fall in torrents of spring rain. When horizons become black and the wind unleashes an uncommon fury lashing out and damaging tender saplings, we stand strong. When thunder rolls across the sky and lightning chases the clouds until it cracks a smoldering hole in the earth, we defiantly stand. We slog through the mud with our troubles for companions until we smell only the putrid odors of decay and lose our way through dank, dark passageways. Sudden storms create flash floods propelling us into other entaglements slamming our bodies underwater and filling our lungs with muck. And still we swim; clinging to life, dreaming with hope, looking for handholds to find a moment’s rest, catching our breath, gaining strength, treading water until we find rescue.

The journey to freedom is sometimes on the outside punching through and pummeling obstacles. More often, the journey to freedom is found in the inner passageways through our past, our memories, and our regrets. But we fight; we carry on. We bravely face each day putting one foot in front of the other. These turmoils don’t define us as much as refine us. Shaping our presence and forging new paths to a future never imagined.

We are sustained by that which is not seen -the promise that the truth will set us free -the hope that we will overcome. And when conditions are right, we can see the past as morning mist – present around us but no longer touching. We effortlessly float on clouds of recovery and strength in freedom’s essence –uncontained and undenied of our unique destiny. We do not simply reside in the land of the free and the brave. We are the free and the brave.