According to the weather reports, we were in for another major storm. This one was coming on the weekend which meant that it had implications for me—worship might be cancelled, which would mean that instead of writing a sermon during the following week, I would be able to clear some of the accumulated “should get at” stuff off the desk. Each weather report kept emphasising and increasing the ferocity of the coming storm.
People began stocking up on essentials—winter storms in Nova Scotia can bring power outages which can last for longer than it takes to clear driveways. Even though it wasn’t the weekend yet, some people began talking about cancelling worship and other activities. I suspect that a friend or two in ministry jumped the gun on the “should get at” pile and skipped the sermon anticipating a cancellation. I began to hope that there might be at least one cross country ski outing in the winter for me. This was, we were told, going to be a major storm.
And then, well, the reality hits. For some reason, the major storm that was supposed to paralyze everything wimped out. We got some snow—almost enough to cover the unraked leaves from the fall and the evidence of the dog’s frequent trips outside. But the roads were basically clear, the power was unaffected—and worship went on, at least for those of us who prefer to wait and see what is actually coming before we panic and act rashly.
I have noticed the people react differently to bad weather than they used to. Now, this is not a “I remember the good old days” rant. I think that as we get better and more accurate information fed to us by media sources that feel it part of their duty to help us prepare for whatever is coming, we have changed our attitude to storms and severe weather.
I remember walking to school in a blizzard—a real blizzard, complete with deep snow, high winds, extreme cold and all the rest. We went to school because it wasn’t cancelled and our parents thought education was a priority. We knew that there was a storm coming but weather reporting back in those days was not as accurate or as pressing. We got up, got dressed in our warmest stuff and walked to school—this was, after all, Canada, where snow in winter is a reality of life.
But today, well, we have a pretty good indication that the coming storm is going to be severe—and so people choose to anticipate the worst. Perhaps it is because we live in a culture where you might get sued if you don’t warn people enough about the storm or maybe because the media works on the assumption that we can’t make decisions for ourselves or maybe for reasons that I haven’t figured out yet, we get told the worst and everyone anticipates and expects the worst.
And many times, the reports are right and it is a major storm and all the advanced planning is valuable and does keep people safe. But every now and then, we discover that we aren’t as advanced in our predicative ability as we think we are and the terrible storm becomes a skim of snow, a puff of wind and some cold that makes all our plans and worries and preparations look kind of silly. It also means that the pastors who believed the reports and didn’t write a sermon are scrambling to either prepare something for worship or justify an unnecessary cancellation.
Me—well, I prefer to wait and see what is coming. I like weather reports but I am still going to write the sermon and be ready for Sunday. I will enjoy the cancellation and use next week’s sermon time for other things if the storm really happens but I am also going to be prepared just in case the storm flops and the most significant aspect of the whole thing was the amount of hot air surrounding the reporting of the coming storm’s ferocity.
I think that now and then, God likes to remind us that while we are really good at a lot of stuff, we don’t actually know as much as we think we know.
May the peace of God be with you.
legassieblog 