Some words meet like strangers at a gathering—polite, reserved, exchanging glances across the room but never quite drawing near. Others, however, seem destined for each other. They gravitate toward the same table, not sharing a language but a spirit. Ephemeral and Qanuk are such words.
The first, from Greek, captures the brevity of a thing that lasts only a day, a spark flaring briefly on the vast canvas of time. The second, drawn from Inuit tongues, names a single snowflake—fragile, luminous, unrepeatable. Apart, they are striking. Together, they feel less like vocabulary and more like companions who, upon meeting, recognise themselves in each other.
A snowflake is the perfect emblem of transience: falling, shimmering, and vanishing into memory. Yet in its brief descent, it is wholly itself—crafted with mathematical precision that will never occur again. So it is with human life: fleeting in duration, intricate in design. The Greeks captured the brevity, the Inuit, the singularity. What one word lacked, the other supplied. Together they tell a fuller truth—that each moment is both passing and unique, irreducible and worthy of attention.
This is why, to me, these words belong at the same party. They are not content with small talk. They remind us of the delicate miracle of existence. They sit side by side, raising a quiet toast to impermanence and beauty, whispering that what vanishes still carries weight, and that in every passing instant there lingers a trace of the eternal.
Perhaps that is why they draw me in—because they speak not only of snowflakes and seconds, but of souls. Each of us is a qanuk: brief in the measure of days, yet no less real for being ephemeral. And if such words belong together, perhaps so do we.
Scripture echoes this truth. Psalm 103 reminds us: “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.” And yet, within that transience the hand of eternity is within our grasp. Jesus proclaims, “Truly, truly, I tell you, he who believes has eternal life” (John 6:47).
Two Words That Belong to the Same Party
Two Words That Belong to the Same Party
Some words meet like strangers at a gathering—polite, reserved, exchanging glances across the room but never quite drawing near. Others, however, seem destined for each other. They gravitate toward the same table, not sharing a language but a spirit. Ephemeral and Qanuk are such words.
The first, from Greek, captures the brevity of a thing that lasts only a day, a spark flaring briefly on the vast canvas of time. The second, drawn from Inuit tongues, names a single snowflake—fragile, luminous, unrepeatable. Apart, they are striking. Together, they feel less like vocabulary and more like companions who, upon meeting, recognise themselves in each other.
A snowflake is the perfect emblem of transience: falling, shimmering, and vanishing into memory. Yet in its brief descent, it is wholly itself—crafted with mathematical precision that will never occur again. So it is with human life: fleeting in duration, intricate in design. The Greeks captured the brevity, the Inuit, the singularity. What one word lacked, the other supplied. Together they tell a fuller truth—that each moment is both passing and unique, irreducible and worthy of attention.
This is why, to me, these words belong at the same party. They are not content with small talk. They remind us of the delicate miracle of existence. They sit side by side, raising a quiet toast to impermanence and beauty, whispering that what vanishes still carries weight, and that in every passing instant there lingers a trace of the eternal.
Perhaps that is why they draw me in—because they speak not only of snowflakes and seconds, but of souls. Each of us is a qanuk: brief in the measure of days, yet no less real for being ephemeral. And if such words belong together, perhaps so do we.
Scripture echoes this truth. Psalm 103 reminds us: “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.” And yet, within that transience the hand of eternity is within our grasp. Jesus proclaims, “Truly, truly, I tell you, he who believes has eternal life” (John 6:47).
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