Snowflakes

Last night, at about midnight, I was driving home from a Christmas Day in Asheville. When in Asheville, the world seems more hopeful, more alive…the city glows. No doubt, Asheville brings out the hippie in anyone who walks her vintage streets, hikes her glorious mountain sanctuaries, or breaks bread at her sacred tables. Asheville is blue, a city of snowflakes that seem certain love and goodness exist not only today, but for tomorrow as well.

All day, I looked at vistas of God’s handiwork. The lure of the blue, the mysterious essence of the Blue Ridge Mountains. When I would gaze out over endless rolling mountains of smoky blue melting into gray, only an artist could have possibly created such a masterpiece. Much like looking out over the sea, the infinite blue coexisting with the pink sky at sunset gives assurance that there is, somewhere, a painter dabbling with a brush on the landscape we call home. For the most part, those who make Asheville home, see the sacredness of this space in the universe that wakes us each new day to do good as opposed to living in impunity in regards to the ground we walk, the air we breathe, and the water that fills our rivers traveling to the sea.

Downtown Asheville creates a vibe that in part, nourishes the body with non-stop food, and yet serves the souls who beg to be different. To dine in Asheville, is not just a conventional food experience, but rather an organic, farm-to-table artistic endeavor as diverse as Ellis Island in 1907. Simultaneously, the shops and galleries are a feast for the soul. When the blandness and cold heart of Amazon finally becomes tiresome, Asheville delivers the unique and human centered commerce our society gravitates towards in an era where retail is dying.

On Christmas Day falling into night, the city was alive. People walked the streets arm in arm with the people they loved, or they were led by dogs clothed in festive Christmas attire. Open signs welcomed guests, and window fronts were of crowded tables of humans lifting their forks and glasses in celebration. From purple Christmas lights to streets adorned with angels rejoicing, Asheville is a city alive, delivering what truly makes America great.

As I drove back to my temporary home in the foothills of the mountains, the lights of Asheville disappeared from view. Driving through one red county after another, I finally exited the highway. As I drove the familiar streets of my old hometown, I was anticipating one last look at the beautiful Christmas lights adorning the court square. The city was dead, the lights had gone dark, and the streets were empty. On a beautiful late Christmas night, the loneliness was so penetrating and the darkness so loud…where sadly, the light and hope of Christmas has already been extinguished quickly…at 12:01 AM. The celebration over, no afterglow lingering into tomorrow or into the promise of a new year. I think that is the difference in being blue, or being red. In the lovemaking with humanity, and in the romance of life, it is the warmth of the afterglow that keeps snowflakes hopeful. The chance for peace, the opportunity to love, the eye for beauty in the different begs us to not give up. The red claim religion and claim patriotism as they march into the battlefield to fight the poor, the vulnerable, the different, and always their best interest. As the snowflakes live in constant afterglow, Republicans glow in muzzle flash. Our lives, our perspectives, so very different.

So, Asheville belongs to those tangled up in the warm hue of blue, and the counties that dot the landscape sliding down the mountain see red. It is the poet versus those who miss the rhyme, the musicians who never feel the beat. The eyes who never see the suffering, the worshiper who delays, always praying for eternity. The irony begets rationale, for in our own light and goodness, the possibility to turn the prayer into today, a heaven of sorts, right here, where eternity is in the moments of our lives, not in some other, faraway realm. That, my friend, is the real reason for the season, to follow Jesus, the original hippie, creator of the mindset…peace and love. The most authentic heart in all of us.

1 Corinthians 13

13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.