The cry of grief and love

When I was a small boy, my grandmother had one of those little glass globes filled with water sitting on a shelf in her home. Inside the glass ball was a little man skating across a pond. The water was as clear as crystal, but there was snow lying on the pond all around him. When I would pick up the ball and give it a good shake, the snow would come swirling around the little man and almost obscure him from my vision.

That little scene is a microcosm of our world. Everything can be fair and settled, when suddenly our whole world is shaken. Suddenly we are caught in a swirling storm. Visibility is almost zero. We can hardly find our way.