In a wretched winter, a day for faith

Those of us who were dreaming of a white Christmas may not be all that popular today with those of us who weren't.

Several inches of snow on the ground. Wind chills of 20 to 30 degrees below zero. Twenty-mile-an-hour winds. Treacherous streets.

You might think it's enough to make even people with the sunniest personalities wonder why we put up with it. We could, after all, move to more temperate climes.

Why don't we?

Perhaps Arlington Heights resident Bill Cason explained it as well as anyone could. Taking a break from an afternoon of shoveling Monday, he told the Daily Herald, "I am like a tulip: If I don't get frozen for part of the year, I won't bloom."

And Cason was just one of numerous suburban residents who, in the midst of one of the most miserably cold and snowy periods of the year, had no trouble explaining away the influence of a bad winter on their choice of a place to live.

"I actually like winter," said Emmy Ward of Mettawa. Luis Megan, of Wheeling, who was born in Mexico said, "I love it here ... I wouldn't have it any other way." Brittany Wetzel, of Crystal Lake, said the snow is what keeps her here, and Marjorie Morton, of Elgin, noted "you have to have faith that spring's coming."

What a perfect thought to reflect on this, the eve of one of the most sacred days of the year for so many people around the world.

You have to have faith that spring's coming. It's really an appropriate theme for the Christmas holiday, a time to examine and reaffirm our faith that better things lie ahead. We've seen plenty in 2008 to shake that faith. A lingering war on two fronts. Continuing acts of terrorism. A relentlessly faltering economy.

But as we shudder at those depressing circumstances, we can also think back - as the Daily Herald also did on Wednesday - to 1983, the year we endured 100 straight hours of temperatures in the double digits below zero. The low on Christmas Eve that year slid to 24 degrees below zero - not counting any wind-chill factor.

It was, in many ways, a wretched time.

But you know what? Spring came. The roads and walkways were cleared. Power was restored. Frozen pipes thawed. Eventually, we returned to normal routines and could revel again in all the wonderful things about Chicago and the suburbs that make life here so unique and special.

It may not feel so promising at the moment, shivering, at home, against bone-chilling temperatures and beset, on a broader scale, by a constant stream of economic reports reminding us of how little money we have. But it will happen. Spring will return as it has 25 times since 1983 and will for the next 25 years and beyond. The economy will find its bottom and, with the ingenuity and determination that has sustained us for more than two centuries, we'll again build a climate of prosperity and optimism.

We will, as Bill Cason might say, bloom. All we need is a little faith.