Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: January 2003

scattering of white powder and everyone panics: camera crews rush out to report on it, journalists set fingers to keyboards to write about it, and sages comment on it. The white powder to which I refer is not, in this instance, the poison ricin, but snow!

arge parts of the country have been transformed by this wintry visitation. Not only does everything look different, but people begin to behave differently too. A group of office workers, usually heading their separate ways at lunchtime, climb up onto the roof of their office block to gaze at the scene below. A bank teller peers out beyond his counter to the white street outside, confessing that he has 'never seen snow like this before'. Two hairdressers take a break between clients to pelt each other with snowballs in the street. A child walking through the cemetery collects snow from a granite gravestone, quite unabashed. English country gardens are visited by fat jolly men sporting woolly hats and carrot noses.

hat is it about a fresh coat of snow that makes everything feel so different? Surely it is because everything looks different too - fresh, clean and bright. The dullest buildings are enlivened by a dusting of snow on their window ledges, and even a dustbin looks more appealing with a white hat on! Safety issues aside, there is a feeling of excitement on a snowy morning because the world looks new again.

adly, the world doesn't feel very new, especially after the discovery of the other white stuff so close to home. However, the Christian faith is one of constantly renewed hope. "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow", says the prophet Isaiah. On this note, Views wishes you a hopeful New Year.