Who is God on a Snow Day?
Dear Friends,
As I write this our kids are experiencing the unmitigated blessing of a snow day. This is the best thing over! It was the number one thanksgiving in all of their prayers last night. Their excitement has a purity, of which I’m frankly rather jealous.
My own feelings are more mixed. It’s beautiful, sitting here watching the snow come down. All is wonderfully quiet (I think my favorite part of snow days now is the way a hush falls over the world). But it is a hassle to get around in and it forces a lot of church and school things to get rescheduled (which will be paid for later when our calendars get overloaded).
For others, this winter storm isn’t a blessing, even a mixed one. It’s just hard. I think of those without housing or a warm place to be, those who need to get to the doctor for illness or injury, those who had job interviews or a flight out on vacation scheduled today, and couples getting married whose friends and family won’t be able to get here.
If we were to take everyone’s feelings about this together, our snow day today is a complicated mix of blessing and disaster, opportunity and danger, joy and sorrow. What do you imagine that looks like from God’s perspective? One of the ways God is God and we are not is that God holds all of this at once — the third grader’s snow day is the existential threat to the person living rough by the creek — and God can handle two things at the same time. The through line is God’s love: God loves the third grader and the giggles and the laughter and the snowball that hits dad in the head. God also loves those shivering and those freezing who find a place to stay warm (see below about the Point in Time count for one way St. Andrew’s plays a role in helping our community in this work). The through line in our lives should be love too.
In any case, stay warm and safe and dry. While the church office is closed tomorrow, the staff is reachable by phone (even the church number will work) and email. Let us know if you need anything.
In Christ,
Fr. Andrew
