Wondering About White-Outs

When we lived in Idaho and Wyoming, I had jobs which required a lot driving as I visited far-flung congregations. Traveling in good weather was a joy, as these states have some of the most beautiful scenery in our country. However, in the winter months, I often found myself in snowstorms, sometimes at night, praying that I would survive to get home.

If you’ve driven in white-out conditions, you know the drill. You can’t see far ahead, so you keep your eyes on the side of the road, tracking the contours of the asphalt, which appears randomly like breadcrumbs in the forest. Periodically, you squint into the blinding whiteness to make out a ghostly sign emerging or a deer bounding across your path. If you’re lucky, there’s a truck ahead of you and you can follow their taillights for a few miles before they turn off and all is shrouded once more. It’s an experience of laser-like concentration and almost unbearable tension. When at last you turn into your driveway, or break out of the storm, relief can make you giddy.

While I no longer must drive in winter conditions, it occurs to me that there are at least two other times recently when I had similar sensations of focus and anxiety. One of those is in writing: When I produce any creative writing, the process seems opaque to me. I start out with a direction for a story or novel or sermon, but soon find myself in a blizzard of ideas and possibilities. I go slowly, trying to find a way forward that feels right, keeping my eye on an almost invisible track of an idea or emotion. I have found that if I stick with the tension, if I can keep finding breadcrumbs to follow, eventually I break into a clearing where the pieces fall into place and the pattern of the story becomes clear and feels true. Creative writing, for me at least, knocks back and forth between these poles of terrible anxiety and amazed exhilaration. (Yes, it’s exhausting!)

The other ‘driving in a snowstorm’ experience I’ve had lately is that of our country’s election and subsequent political agenda. (I know, some of you would call this a shit storm, and I wouldn’t disagree.) On the level of our national life together, it feels like the world has descended into a maelstrom of immorality and careless, crass selfishness. It’s hard to imagine how we can find our way out of this dark blizzard. I’m not even seeing tail lights to follow at the moment, as blame for the Democrats’ loss is added to the mix, and wars escalate around the world. It’s tempting to pull over and turn up my personal heater and get cozy until the weather changes… but both writing and driving have taught me that is futile. Instead, I’m looking for the path, for the signs that God has laid in love, which still exist in the white-out somewhere. I look up once in a while to find a conflict averted, a neighbor in an act of kindness, the cheerful quail calling encouragement to each other on the back patio and find courage to go on. I know I’m also called to lay down such breadcrumbs for other travelers to find, or at least point them out. I’m often afraid and discouraged because I missed the signals that winter was once more upon us, but here it is… so I will go on.

This is the thing about driving in a white-out. There will be crashes and wrecks, and I hope that if I come upon them, I have the courage and wisdom to stop and help (or that someone will help me!) But I believe there is a way forward, even if now we only catch glimpses of it. The worst of winter storms end. Eventually, we will break through into the clearing, and it will be beautiful. Can you imagine it? The sun on fresh snow sparkling with the brilliance of all our spilled tears. The sky so blue that broken hearts open even wider to receive its beauty. And the pattern of love that is God sweeping up terror and bleakness into comfort and mercy, as promised.

May it be so with this time we are traveling through, and may we arrive home safely.