razor-sharp grass and back-breaking apples

In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis portrays visitors from hell to heaven as phantoms. Their experience of the reality of heaven is literally painful--the grass is too sharp to walk on, and even a leaf can barely be moved. I felt like I was living a scene from that book this morning. As usual, Ian wanted to go out and play in the snow, which for him means mostly to shovel it with no particular objective. Wet snow followed by a cold snap gives you basically a coating of white ice, and it still hasn't warmed up enough to soften things up. He was determined, though. I'd watch him grunt and slide, until he finally managed to scrape free a few precious grains that could be hurled. He'd had enough by the time I was ready to go inside and went along willingly.

At one point, we tried walking out into the common yard between the buildings. You stay right on top of the snow, and if you're not careful, it's easy to slip and fall. Fortunately, with his snow pants on, he didn't get hurt from falling on his butt several times in a row. Still, it didn't seem like we'd get very far that way, so I had him sit on the shovel and pulled him around the yard for a while. That was fun while it lasted, but he still had to make the attempt at the shoveling.

Truly axios are those men of the Brotherhood of St. Joseph, who are probably assailing the shell around our church as I type this. I hope they have more pick-axes among them than shovels.