Transformation

Huw Williams | 21:14, Wednesday 18 February 2013 | Turin, Italy

The snow finally came to Torino last week. We woke on the Monday morning to a scene that looked as though it had been bombarded by snow for some hours. At the time it was only accumulating on the roofs of houses and of cars, but the skies looked threatening and determined and it felt like it was only a matter of time before the pavements and roads would have to give up their resistance and would soon begin to disappear - along with our plans to take a nice long walk - under a growing blanket of white. Sure enough, by mid morning, driving was looking difficult, and even pedestrians had to change their gait and waddle down the street outside our window.

We ventured out into the relentless snowfall, only as far as the nearest Metro station, passed trees bulging and bleeding whiteness, by which time we were happy to burrow underground, and make the rest of our journey subterraneanly. By the time we poked our noses out into daylight again we were in Lingotto, so what better thing to do than hurry to Eataly for a chocolata calda? The hot chocolate was so thick, so rich and creamy and so appropriate on such a day as this, that I think I might have walked the distance for it, even in this relentless snowfall.

It isn't just our plans and our driving and our walking and our tastes that are transformed on days like this, it is the cityscape too. In just a few brief hours, the greys and granites normally so stern were suddenly soft-edged and sparkling. The light is different as our eyes adjust to reflections from below.

But this isn't just Torino, anyone who has ever seen snow knows to expect it to affect everything we do. Isn't it funny how a bit of precipitation can throw us into such confusion or delight? Just twenty-four hours before our snowbound adventures, I was reflecting with the church here in Luke 5 on how those who experience Jesus are never, can never, be the same again. A paralysed man walks, a tax-collector leaves his wealth behind, even enemies become more entrenched. But isn't it strange how we sometimes want Jesus to change so little?