Weather Report: 03.10.09

This morning as I sat by my computer that overlooks a frigid, snowy and windblown parking lot I am considering how just days ago it was full of puddles in the 35 degree thaw. Today temperatures are below zero and the wind gusts are up into the 30 mile per hour range. In the upper Midwest March storms can be the most brutal and surprising. Perhaps it is because we have experienced a taste of spring. Or perhaps it is because we simply expect winter to be over.

This made me think of a scene from Lord of the Rings where Gandalf fights the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad-dum. Gandalf appears to have defeated the Balrog who unexpectedly sends up on last fiery tendril and grasps Gandalf by the leg and pulls him into the abyss. First time viewers or readers are horrified that the grandfatherly Gandalf is pulled from their sights.

Though Gandalf does not exhibit an inappropriate triumphalism, I have always read this scene as a warning against an attitude of attained achievement. I cannot help but to wonder how this sense of triumphalism has snuck into our theology. When we boldly declare our salvation, our theologies and definitions of truth. When we consider all such things as completed we run the risk of being blindsided by one last whip of winter or tendril of the Balrog.

We do well to remember the seasons of salvation, that the Kingdom is present and still coming, that truth can be known but only in part and through faith, and that though we may be wealthy there are still poor and starving. While the Kingdom may be at hand, our work is not done.
Lent being time for self-reflection is only aided by such weather where I prefer to stay inside. Here I am challenging and consoling my sense of achievements with process and incompleteness.

Weather Report: 01.12.09

Today I walked out of my study into the living room as clouds of exhaust were billowing up from the laundry room creating brilliant pastel oranges.

Both images were taken at about 4:30 pm from our living room that overlooks the parking lot to the west. While the winter likely has a good month and a half or more left up here in Grand Forks, I think I can tell that the days are getting longer (perhaps I am just an optimist). There is hope in small measures that suggest our greater hope.

Today it is bitterly cold as wind from the north has swept in bringing a storm that shut down the lower part of the state for a while. I am thankful that it missed us and allowed Karina's brother and sister-in-law to get off on time this morning for their return trip to Springside SK.

Despite the cold, snow, wind, ice, frozen extremities, weary automobiles, blown-in sidewalks and stairs, there is an austere beauty here that I've not experienced elsewhere on the prairies in Iowa or South Dakota. For all the frustration and annoyances of living in the north during the winter (and we really are not that far north), there is an unmistakable beauty for the winter hearty willing to see.

Kathleen Norris writes in her weather report for February 10 in Dakota says, "at the breath of God's mouth the waters flow. Spring seems far off, impossible, but it is coming." Today, as I trudged across campus, cheeks bitten by the cold, each expired breath rose in clouds of praise to our Creator for the beauty of the north.