Thursday, February 3, 2022 (today’s lectionary)
Snow day
David said to his son Solomon, I am going the way of all flesh.
We sat in front of the fire yesterday afternoon. Andi, Miles, Jasper, Margaret and I ate sandwiches and fruit. We drank milk and juice. A jigsaw puzzle sat half-finished in the corner, not far from the fire. The wind was not yet howling outside, but it would be soon.
We did not think much into the future, not looking toward “the way of all flesh.” We sat together waiting for the weather to fall on us like it already had fallen in Illinois. We were excited about a snow day, but we felt safe.
Take courage and be a man.
Our son Marc sent us a picture of one of his beautiful cats sitting inside a window, while a foot of snow fell outside. White snow, black cat, settling into a long winter night, no need to get anywhere in a hurry right now.
Just a year ago I drove into Mt. Pleasant, Texas and waited out a Texas snowstorm, all night and half the next day. In the morning Interstate 30 was abandoned. Snowplows? Salt? The highway bumped my white Prius around like a slalom ski run, and I followed the only other car, 30 miles per hour, through Dallas. Seven hours later I picked up Margaret, and we left our powerless, waterless apartment and we settled for a few days at Andi and Aki’s house a few miles north.
Take nothing for the journey except a walking stick. Wear sandals but do not take an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town.
We stayed five days. Our apartment complex’s broken water pipes kept us storing snow in our bathtub for another week, washing dishes when we had to, looking for drinking water wherever we could find it. We met some of our neighbors for the first time. We shared what we could, including buckets and a shovel.
Lord, riches and honor are from you. In your hand are power and might.
There’s no war here now, and there wasn’t then. Both in Texas and Illinois, the crazy weather recedes within a few days. We say it often, and it’s true: we are blessed. Climate change and civil unrest wait in the wings. Who knows how God will guide our paths even tomorrow, let alone next year? In those days and in these, God’s trustworthy love for us is what blesses us, and what makes us safe.
The Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.
(1 Kings 2, 1 Chronicles 29, Mark 1, Mark 6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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