Well, we get to be wimps again. Here in Cloverdale we got over a foot of snow yesterday. Our school is shut down for the day, surprisingly (but not really) the public schools are staying open and we head into a few days of icy weather and stupid drivers. Some of you are probably saying, “Oh boohoo minus 5… get over it.” –5 here feels pretty cold though, colder than I remember –5 feeling in Alberta. Could be because of the humidity or something else I don’t understand. That said, it isn’t this cold here:
Now that’s cold, boiling water turning into snow in –45. Very cool indeed.
I have a funeral today, and this may be one of the most extreme weather interments I have had to do thus far. I had one in the fall when the rains were coming down really hard. That was tough. I also remember assisting at one on Vicarage when it was the middle of Winter. It’s hard when a family is grieving, you want things to be relatively smooth and everything, and often they appreciate spending time at the graveside and in weather like that they just can’t. It’s difficult to do that with the torrents coming down or when cold weather is driving everyone else indoors. Please don’t think this is something that is weird or inappropriate to talk about, it is a part of my ministry and something pretty much everyone has to deal with at some point in their own lives, losing a loved one. For me, it isn’t that I have gotten used to it, but that God’s promises have become more concrete to me through these events. It is nice to know though that this woman is now in the arms of her Lord and in the company of all the saints that have been laid to rest, far beyond the grasp of the cold and snow.
1 comment:
Your internment story reminds me of a scene from a Margaret Laurence novel (The Stone Angel, I think). In the days before there were backhoes, the cemetary's groundskeeper would sometimes dig 'just in case' holes before the ground froze for people he didn't think were going to make it through winter. Pretty grim.
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