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| Snowdrops, Mells |
A galanthophile is a person who loves snowdrops. Apparently, there are around 500 different varieties of delicate white petalled plant. A true galanthophile will be able to tell a ‘Ding Dong’ from a ‘Heffalump’. Don’t ask me, though. I just like the things. It’s always a joy to see multitudes of them in bloom along the banks of the B3098 on the way to West Lavington.
A favourite winter walk for the wife and me is through the Somerset village of Mells. You can pick up a path alongside the Mells Stream that will take you past the ruins of Fussell’s Iron Works. Around this time of year, you will find snowdrops a-plenty springing up in front of the old furnaces that loom high over the path.
Snowdrops are an early promise that the arid deadness of winter will pass. Soon there will be daffodils and tulips. Spring will have sprung. In the meantime, the humble snowdrop is a little reminder of the beauty of creation. We don’t simply live in a world that provides us with the bare necessities of life (as Baloo might put it), but a world that fills us with delight. After all, you can’t eat snowdrops, which are poisonous to human beings. But who would be without them?
The Christian faith teaches us that God created our world to display his wisdom, power and goodness. The snowdrop is a wonderful example of his handywork. Yes, we live in a fallen world that is twisted and broken, but there is still much that is beautiful for us to behold. The purity of the snowdrop stands in contrast with the grubbiness of human greed, hatred and cruelty.
None of us is free from the taint of sin. The goodness of God hinted at in Ding Dongs and Heffalumps is revealed most wonderfully in that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ to die in our place to cleanse us from sin. As Isaiah the prophet almost said,
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as [a] snow[drop]."
* For various local parish magazines
