It is May 3, and we had snow here today. As I endeavor to love Minnesota, I realized that even when snow falls late in the spring it is still quite pretty. What is also interesting is that the snow itself doesn’t change. Snow is, well, snow; frozen little drops of water. What changes is us. It is our perception of the snow. Suddenly, the same element in nature that one day we are in awe of and taking photos of, cannot be valued in the same way, until next year when we are okay with it being winter. Then, SNOW gets to enjoy our judgment of being “good”.
Take for example these photos…two days I experienced when snow was deemed good for me…two glorious days in the snow. One of these days was in the Wasatch Mountains of Northern Utah, the other, right after Thanksgiving in Duluth, Minnesota…that evening it was the first snow of the season and fell on a newly set up Christmas light display, it was magical and the first of one of the record-breaking year…they are quite ready for it all to melt at present.
I am convinced that one of the greatest truths out there is that we see the world as we are and not necessarily as it. Snow is just frozen water that has to change in response to cold temperature but it will be judged by humans until the end of time…it is just the way we are.
I am processing this today because I’m trying to understand the whole concept of judgment in my own life and how much it colors my world. Jesus, told us not to judge because we could be judged the very same way. I know you’ve had that happen to you just like I have. You pass sentence on someone and before you know it, it is YOU doing the exact same thing. One funny one for me…or not so funny depending on the day, is that I sat by this woman on a plane going to Minneapolis. She was debating whether or not to follow her who boyfriend to Utah or stay in Minnesota for her great job. I was thinking, “Lady, it’s a no-brainer, head to Utah: Life Elevated!!” It wasn’t just a few months later and guess who was moving to Minnesota?? I’m not making this up.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that this because I am becoming VERY aware that my inner world is a judgmental machine. Always classifying and ordering life based on my preferences. It kind of “is” a certain way because I make it so. It has very little to do with what it actually IS.
Today, I chose to see the snow without a judgment. It was just snow. It was a bit easier to do because unlike my neighbors to the south here in Minnesota, I’m not dealing with another 12″ or more. Nonetheless, I am really longing for some warm days in the yard, anxious to plant some flowers…
Jane Getting Real 
Whatever order there is to the universe (I claim the God who chose to visit us as flesh and blood) whatever order there is to the universe, It provides an incredible freedom to be …. freed from the past through keeping our accounts clear – seeking and granting forgiveness …. freed from our expectations of the future by allowing Him to take responsibility for our best possible outcome…. and all we have to do is give up our claim – “Not my will but thine!” …. that is all we have to do, I say tongue in cheek!
Tom,
Do you see how YOUR perspective actually processed this writing of mine? Consider the personal truths that you have made universal in your response. The focus of what I was saying is about how our perception of what we encounter, in this case snow, is very much determined by the lens we each use to interpret life in general.
me
Perception is not in reality a judgment but only a picture of what we give and identity. Snow is a chemical reaction in physics but what is important is the image in conjures in our thinking mind and what symbolically it means to us. As an example, I see snow as I see humans, each one different in shape,size and texture. Humans are the same way. Snow is a cleansing of the earth giving nurture to death so new life may come. To one person a happening may be a miracle and to some one else it may be random. Is this judgment, a happening from God or simply a perception of a human mind. Never the less, it is what it is. In the scheme of all things in the Universe we don’t exist yet to us we do. Life happens as it should despite our ego that we are the only existing thinking creatures. How absurd to think we are the only ones in such a never ending billions of universes. Snow is beautiful and it brings life is all I know. All else is a mystery, isn’t it?
My husband needs to get into this. We were just talking about the profound Universe we live in and he was sharing something about an article he read in Astronomy magazine with me today. He said is something to the effect that it was so incomprehensible that he had to just move on because his thinking mind couldn’t process it.
One of the definitions of judgment according to Dictionary.com is, “The forming of an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion, as from circumstances presented to the mind ”
In light of my little blog here, snow really is just that, a chemical reaction in physics. BUT how I perceive that chemical reaction leads me to forming an opinion, estimate, notion or conclusion about it falling from the sky on May 3, 2013. My perception seems to be that good snow falls in winter and “bad” snow falls in spring or even summer. Good snow falls in the mountains when I want to snow shoe or when I want to see Christmas Lights in Duluth near Lake Superior. It’s definitely all in my mind and part of my ego’s way of seeing.
Another passion of mine is to better understand why in the great democracy of ours we are so politically divided and thinking about snow falling in May brought me back to the reality that we are humans and we are very identified with our minds and emotions. My perceptions of what makes a life work have changed so much as I have moved around the country. Those perceptions have shifted and altered and been all over the place. It’s made me uncomfortable and insecure. It’s been my experience that these perceptions have turned into judgments and frozen me in some ways. I found that I could only cope at times by saying one way of doing something was good and the other bad when in reality both were just what they were in each place at each time. The more insecure I feel, the more my mind wants to find a locus of control by “forming an opinion, estimate, notion or conclusion” as from as circumstance presented to it.
Snow in May gave me a glimpse of this…it allowed me to let it go and be present in the moment.