Ambassadors of Hope into Winter

It was twenty-seven degrees out this morning when I began to scrape the ice off my windshield, not something a Californian is used to doing. I started the car and drove through our neighborhood, all freshly frosted from last night's cold. I remember mornings like these in northern California as a little boy. We would walk to school, hear the crunch of the frozen grass under our sneakers and leaving softer greener footprints behind.

As I pulled out onto the main little street, I passed a service truck beside which was a man on a ladder hanging some kind of evergreen garland around a lamppost. He was about half-way done with the whole street.

The evergreen seems to be a cute holiday tradition. A long time ago, I thought, evergreens must have been chosen to symbolize everlasting life offered at Christmas. In southern California, nothing
really dies in the winter. It's funny, the only dead thing around would probably be your Christmas tree.

But when I drive over the Grand Haven bridge and see the tree line, when I am walking in the woods, when I am running through my neighborhood, I am surrounded by things that are dying. The wind has torn leaves from the trees; the frost is beginning to harden the ground, and soon, even the water. The only sign of life are evergreen trees, shocks of green life amidst the brown and grey.

So it's no wonder this man was wrapping our neighborhood in evergreens. He is hanging our flag for us to cheer one another on: "We CAN last through the winter! We CAN endure!" Evergreens are our champions, our ambassadors into the coldest winter. They proudly guard our streets; banners of life that give us hope, even during winter.