Saskatchewan can be a challenging place to live in winter. Although I grew up here, it was not until I returned after a thirty year absence that I realized it. This particular year winter has been– winter!

Rising before the sun rises, going to work in the dark, coming home after sunset, all the while in temperatures that make houses crack, contracting as though even they are trying to minimize exposure to the frigid -40 C air, could freeze, or at least numb one's spirit.

And the snow! mounds of it pushed away to make room for cars to navigate the icy streets, ugly ruts of sandy snow granules with blackened three foot walls of snow on either side. A dark and forbidding

world.

And then today arriving at Campion College I open the hatch of the Hyundai Accent to retrieve my briefcase. On the carpet inside, a tiny perfect snowflake looking up at me trundled up in my dour parka and cap lifts my heart with its ephemeral glow.

The rising of the sun makes the hoar frost sparkle on bushes and trees, even on the south side of the trunks, and the snow glistens on the prairie all the way to the horizon.

As I trudge towards the building the snow crunches beneath my feet as it only does below -30 C and I think of G. M. Hopkins’ words, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God!"