January 17, 2011 (Monday)
Yesterday’s football playoff game in Chicago was played in intermittent snow. Closeups of the players sometimes showed snowflakes on their helmets and uniforms, and they were of many different shapes and patterns. Reminded me of the Fourth Grade in the winter of 1940-41 at Looscan Elementary in Houston. It snowed that season and the teacher passed out sheets of black construction paper, showing us how to hold them out the windows of the classroom and collect snowflakes. She wanted us to see how beautiful snowflakes are. What a wonderful thing for her to do. She helped her pupils appreciate the wonder of God’s world. We were excited as little miracles fell from the sky.
For a few seconds, we captured snowflakes that looked a lot like this:
No two snowflakes are exactly alike. Every snowflake is different, although each snowflake is made up of thousands of tiny, identically shaped hexagonal crystals gathered together. There are infinite possibilities for the design of snowflakes. Wilson (Snowflake) Bentley, a recognized expert in the subject, never found two identical snowflakes.
Louis Armstrong made famous a song by Robert Thiele and George David Weiss, entitled, “What A Wonderful World.” I can hear it in my head as I think about snowflakes.