Pure As a Snow

How big is your heart?

Just the other day, I read a lovely warm letter from anonymous over the net. It is midwinter in Tokyo; and she wrote.

” I found a 7cm-deep carpet of snow this morning. Snow has a magic art because it can change the usual world into  a strange beautiful and peaceful one. The white purity of snow covers everything dirty, wicked and unhappy. It is a wonderful change. You would like it, if you were here. Snow is as pure and as beautiful as you”.

The sweet note gives me the chill because I believe in snow and I believe that people can be as beautiful and as pure as snow. But me, as pure as snow?

Sometimes I feel so blessed and enlightened that I want to shout my discoveries out loud to the world, even if I know I cannot possibly communicate accurately my bliss and joy. At other times, I feel terribly stupid, and it makes me question my own holy sacred experiences; then, I clearly see how proud I am. How can I be pure when I experience pride and doubt and self-contradiction? How can I be pure when I passionately desire to be pure? How can I be pure when I want to be presumptuously God pure?

I am in tears now, even as I write this blog because I genuinely ache to seek God. Because I want to be as pure as snow. And I wonder if it is not pride. I want to be pure! Not for people who know me, not even for me. But for God! I want to mirror God’s purity. No! I want to be dissolved in God’s purity!

These past few days, I’ve been evaluating and re-examining my motives for withdrawing from the world. Do I seek sanctity to satisfy a claim for divine power? Have I bought the spirit of the world condemned by Christ into my solitude?

My heart is bleeding. I should have asked these questions much, much earlier. Then, I would have seen how rotten I was, how mad, how crazy. I cry now because of this ugly memory that I have lied. Did I completely deceive myself and God? I don’t know. I cannot remember all my motives then. I must admit my motives were not all as pure as I want them to be now. But they weren’t all lies, either. Some of them were genuine, some of them have got to be genuine! But however twisted my mind was, I tried to seek God. And maybe that is all that matters. Love found me, loved me, redeemed me, and I hope there is no more self description changed me.

Changed me! Like snow covering all that is dirty and wicked. God has made me snow pure!

Dear readers, I’m sorry. I cannot go on. I cannot take on all of these at once. I’m sorry to cut this blog short. My heart is too heavy and too full. And the light is too blinding and the love is too soothing, too healing. I want to pray…..