The idea for this card came from other people. A woman who paints aspens. My son in law whose artistic style has shown me that simplicity and beauty can coexist. Not that I will be thinning the five hundred ornaments on our tree anytime soon. Cardinals have long symbolized the presence of my parents. When they show up in the yard I feel like Mom and Dad are peeking in my window.  

Oh, and pinterest.

But the components had something to do with me. The tree trunks are slivers of songs John and I wrote over the years. The handmade paper snow is leftover from other projects involving slurry. The calligraphy is a throwback to a time when my ink and pens saw more use. As in Before Kids. 

Walking through woods on a snowy evening evokes both silence and singing. It may sound like an untenable pair, but I have felt it, and the sensation is peace. Not overwhelming like a Hallelujah chorus, or a shepherd's choir of seventy souls. Neither the icy solitude of abandonment. Just rambling, leaving footprints in the powder to mark that I have passed. At least until more flakes fall and then they disappear. 

There was a time BC when abandonment hung like a shroud. Slavery, death, and hopelessness ruled in a land where love had lost its way. But then the music arrived. Angels, in voices too quiet to be heard by soldiers, yet too booming to be ignored by shepherds filled the skies. 

Then they were gone. 

As more flakes fell the stunned peasants wondered if it had been a dream. Or did it really happen? 

In great haste they hurried to find Proof. Proof that peace and strife can coexist. And ever since then, we can know for certain that Someone is watching us through the window.