In the snow

This past week I took a Jan Term intensive, more on that at a latter date. However our five-day class got cut short due to one of the trifecta snow storms that have hit the east coast the past few weeks. It was entertaining to me to see everyone upset about nine inches of snow. I’m not sure if its me and my potential cockiness or my New York attitude or just my years of snow related driving that made me feel like this was nothing. Regardless of this I used it as a day to camp out and then to help someone move. Yes move across campus in the snow.

            Now this person had a lot of stuff and was not well packed for a move in any kind of weather, let alone snow and poorly managed snow as well. I digress, so I start gathering possessions that I do not know the value of and placing them into vessels prepared for transport.  Soon we start trudging it the 900 feet from building T to building W where the new residence was. 900 feet really is not that far but in the snow everything is more, longer, colder. Thankfully we found people on campus who we begged into helping and only one slight fall, and minor twist of the ankle by yours truly, we moved a futon a kitchen, clothing from two closets and a dresser and books(not a lot thankfully, seminary students do tend to have  lot of these…).

            It seems funny to me that we did something that we all do rather frequently, and that is move in a time when it seems that you should be sitting still. Creation sits still in the snow, as evidenced by the birds that flock to my front yard at home in NY but stay nested in the height of the storm. But yet once again I was going against the current and well not frocking in the snow doing something somewhat absurd.

            As of late I have come to realize that my life is somewhat absurd, and does not always make sense to me all the time. But I had the unique opportunity to see that we are never quite prepared all the time for what will be asked of us.  I could have said ‘nope its cold and I’m not going to go trudging through the snow’ to the person in need of moving. But what would I be doing if I did that? I would be sitting and taking a passive role, in what turned out to be an entertaining afternoon with good conversation and only a few aspirin latter it was done.

            So often we are caught unprepared, doing activities in quite the wrong season.  But we must stand and deliver with the best that we know we can do. Even if we are quite confidant that we have no clue what it will be. In this case my hands and virgo need to organize where the best gifts that I could offer. Maybe next time it will be my mean crockpot skills, or my box of tissues, or something more.