It’s a winter’s afternoon and the fields are covered with soft, clean snow. The snow is full of tracks made by birds and animals. On looking closely at those tracks it is possible to identify some of these birds and animals and even to tell what they are up to.

Most of what you see there is harmless- the tracks of little creatures trying to stay alive in a hostile climate. For instance, you see the scratchings of sparrows in their quest for a worm, and the rootings of rabbits looking for a blade of grass. But then you see a spatter of blood on the snow where a fox or a bird of prey has made a kill.

On a normal day you could cross and re-cross these fields, and you would see nothing of the doings of the birds and animals. Everything would be covered up. But on this day their cover is blown and all is revealed. Everything is written there in the snow – innocence, fun, resourcefulness, pain, cunning and red murder.

Something like this can happen in the world of humans. Something happens in the community or in the work-place, and people are forced to take a stand. Suddenly their cover is blown and they appear in their true colours. Some come out well, but others are shown in a very poor light.

All of us leave tracks behind us. This week while we stay in our homes and let the winter play out its part beyond our warm homes, we have been given an opportunity to stop moving and look back at the tracks we are leaving behind us in our recent past. Are they the tracks of a coward, or a hypocrite, or someone who lives only for himself/ herself? Or are they the tracks of a courageous, generous person? We will see whether or not we are on the side of our brothers and sisters, or whether we are against our brothers and sisters.

The extent of our virtue is determined, not by what we are doing in extraordinary circumstances, but by our normal behavior. It is modest, everyday incidents rather than extraordinary ones that most reveal and shape our characters.