Thursday, February 25, 2010

Beatrice (A Different Kind of Weather)

I’ll always remember this story because of what Beatrice said afterwards, in response to my exclamation: “I can’t even imagine experiencing changes as drastic as this.”

And this is what she said, laughing (she’d already started laughing before she said it): “If you’re around long enough, you WILL!”

How could I not laugh with her? It’s scary and beautiful at the same time. To know that one day I will know a lot of things that, right now, hey, I just don’t know. Really scary and really beautiful.

Beatrice Newkirk
A Different Kind of Weather

The weather today is altogether different.  In the olden days, we could tell the difference in the weather.  We knew when it got cold, it stayed cold.  When it got hot, it got hot and stayed hot.  In the days of cold, we would put away summer clothes until the next summer.  We did not have to go back and forth. 

Nowadays, we don’t know.  Cold one week, hot the next.  Nowadays, you have to keep summer clothes, winter clothes altogether.  We never had to go back in the summer to get summer things out of the closet because it was a change in the weather.  Sometimes we think it’s going to be hot, then it’s cold.  We can’t change the weather, but we can change ourselves.

God is in charge of the weather.  Whatever is put on us, we have to bear.  Without the weather, where would we be?  A different kind of weather.