I was drawn out into the ice today. Ice because that's what it was. We hoped for snow but got a constant drizzle of diminutive hail.

I went out with my camera, many layers, and hiking boots. I snapped pictures of sights I rarely see, took video clips, watched the Cardinals play.

I thought of a radio tower down the road. I wondered how it looked against the icefall. So I hazarded the climb up the hill out of my apartment complex. Up the winding road, past the abandoned cars failed in their ascent, out to the main road haphazardly plowed.

I trudged through the brown ice drifts kicked onto the sidewalk. At least, what I thought was the sidewalk. I took photos and video along the way and tucked my camera inside my jacket to keep the battery from freezing.

I arrived at my destination about half a mile away. The tower stood dark against the falling ice crystals, their gentle tumble making its sharp frame hazy. I pulled my camera from its warm shelter and framed the shot. And the screen went dark. Red letters flashed twice: flat battery.

On the cold walk back, I turned down another route for different scenery. But I stopped abruptly. Before me was a wide, pure expanse of fallen ice. An unbroken plane of marble that curved out of sight. Unmarked by footprints or tire tracks. The translucent white crystals caught the streetlight and shone with a luminous gold.

I hesitated, then stepped back from that sacred field and retreated to the path I had already trod. My boots stomped through the muddied drifts beside the road, already churned up by my passage half an hour before.

I imagined what my boots would have done to that gilded surface, the rubber treads tearing into that peaceful crystal field leaving pockmarked scars in my wake.

But I wonder.

Did I heed a holy warning, or flee a divine invitation?

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