It’s a new January’s whitest morning. Above reigns a crisply blue sky with the sound of quieting winds. Covering the ground? The earthly covering is mounds of white stuff.

Youth-filled eyes awaken to its wonder and their smiling faces already have their day planned. Mom and Dad look out the window, frown at each other, and turn to the other side for another thirty minutes of sleep.

The smells of Mom’s coffee couples with Dad’s noisy fourth pull for gasoline for his dreaded chore. Now arrives the growing energy and excitement offspring of those two. Although Christmas was a long memory past to these youngsters, it seems to have reappeared. The inside cedar is now outside. Appearing in their minds and hearts is the giftedness, wonder, and imagination that this day holds for them.

The barrier of breakfast becomes unbearable while staring all the while at all the bright whiteness resting on their lawn. “Dad did his job,” the children think, “I guess it’s time now for us to do our job.”

Frolic is the best describer of those kids jumping and falling on those white mounds. Neighbor children quickly join in the fun. Wearing every piece of clothing they possess, those minds and hearts turn to creation.

Following the previous night’s tremendous storm, children only think of beauty and creation. “What can we do with all this white stuff that Dad piled together?” One starts to make circular weapons out of it to fling to the neighbor he never liked. This happens for quite a while until finally, the children realize that this ice-balling back and forth has no end.

Another child, in a simple lying resting position, stretches out her arms and begins to wave them within the whitey stuff. Another sees this and yells out, “She’s making an angel!” Instead of a contest of throwing it at each other, the new contest is now creating a better, more beautiful angel. All experienced within the whiteness of a cold, sunny, January morning.

“Giftedness, wonder, and imagination.” Childish dreams? Ones that we happily outgrow and throw away to deal with the real realities of life? G, W, I.

From those three words springs the wonders of angelic blueprints fallen from the heavenly white stuff. And, their imagination moves from the ground upward. One says to another, “Let’s build a mound of three very large balls and see what it looks like.” “Good idea,” says the neighborhood shy kid.

So one huge ball placed upon another huge ball completes the G, W, and I. Dad’s charcoal for the eyes (so often darkened losing life’s beauty), lips that only widely smile. And, finally, inserted in the mouth? I pipe. (I never understood why always a pipe, but a pipe it is.)

G, W, I? Giftedness, Wonder, and Imagination. From a winter’s storm to futile aggression and combat; to imaging an angel, made in our image only with wings; to creating and recognizing the wonder of the person in each of us. All that wet, white stuff sent down from the heavens and recreated by young minds and hearts that hopefully will always remain youth-filled.

“Sorry guys,” the oldest says. “That’s my Mom yelling, it’s time for lunch.”

(Smoking it not healthy, just so you know.)