Tedious?

River Ayr 14th January 2010

Everyone I've met this morning is tired of the snow. Even the enthusiasm of schoolchildren has waned because their school playgrounds are deemed too dangerous to play in and they are spending a lot of time indoors. It seems we've had enough. It was fine as a backdrop to our Christmas festivities but now the chaos and disruption are not welcome. The freshness has worn off.

This story has been in my mind today:

"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a coalmouse asked a wild dove.

"Nothing more than nothing," the dove answered."In that case I must tell you a marvelous story," the coalmouse said. "I sat on a fir branch close to the trunk when it began to snow. Not heavily, not in a raging blizzard. No, just like in a dream, without any violence at all. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,471,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch-nothing more than nothing-as you say-the branch broke off."

Having said that, the coalmouse ran away.

The dove, since Noah's time an authority on peace, thought about the story for a while. Finally, she said to herself, "Perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace to come to the world."

-Source unknown

I'm wondering - do we react to peacemaking in the same way we've reacted to the snow? With enthusiasm for a while, but finding the effort and sheer hard work tedious after a while.

World governments are not giving a lead and that makes it all the harder to believe that peace can ever be realised. There's more than one voice lacking but don't let it be ours.