Josprel's Articles of Faith - Snow: A Patience Grower


Writer Author  Josprel (Joseph Perrello)
Christian Column : Inspirational  - Fiction  No

Christian Author Writer Humor with a Purpose:

An open letter to all those who live in snowless communities. If you are a Christian who has need of patience, move here. Believe me you don’t know what you’re missing!

We had a true "blaster" of a snow-storm here in Western New York, yesterday. The temp went down to 15 below zero, and some of our areas received some fourteen inches of snow. When I attempted to start my cars, our new Grand Am immediately revved up, but the older car (our 1989 Ford Thunderbird XL, that thinks it’s still a young bird, moaned and groaned, protesting that it wanted to continue sleeping.

Finally the battery died and I had to purchase a new one. We've had the old Bird for some twelve years of faithful service in the Lord’s work, so I’ve grown attached to it. On numberless occasion it sat outside of the homes of my parishioners or in a hospital parking lot while I made a pastoral visit. I’d hate to clip its wings. A T-Bird with clipped wings is heartbreaking to see. If it were a horse, I’d retire it to pasture.

Nevertheless, we now drive the wingless wonder only during the cool seasons, since I haven't bothered to recharge its air conditioner. I see no need for it; because of the age of the Bird, its air conditioner requires a coolant that has been banned by the EPA. To convert the air conditioner to an approved coolant would cost some $500, a foolish expenditure to my way of thinking. The Bird itself isn’t worth that much. So, once the snow season is over, the Bird goes in the garage, and out comes the Grand Am, which we drive during spring, summer and autumn, and on out-of-town winter trips. And I don’t detect one iota of envy in the T-Bird when I do so; it’s contented to remain in the garage and leave the driving to the Grand Am.

Of course, you who have no concern for snowstorms - especially you who live in the sunny tropics - have no need of an old winter car to take all the snow abuse our cars take here. Ahhhhh, you fortunate beings! Neither do you have need of home snow-blowers. Yesterday morning, our city’s truck-plows "cleared” our street of snow, pushing it all from the street into our driveways. Naturally, I bundled up toasty warm and cleared the hard packed snow from our driveway with our home snow-blower. The snow was packed so hard that it first had to be broken up with a spade. Can you imagine that?! And that’s calling a spade a spade!

Some two hours after the drive was cleared of the blessing the city plows left in our driveway, they came again and left us a second blessing – another endowment of hard packed snow. Of course, out came our spade-that-we-call-a-spade, and snow-blower. And, I must confess, my ears were scorched as my normally mild-mannered neighbor colored the freezing air blue with his shocking imbrications at the city’s truck-plow drivers. Not since the time I was separated from Air Force duty have I heard anyone as fluent and thunderous in such language as he proved to be. Perhaps he experienced a sort of relief by using such a vocabulary but, as a Christian, I swallowed hard and asked the Lord to endue me with some of Job’s patience.

Still, I have concluded there's something cruelly sinister about our city's snow-plow operators. It seems to me that they get a sadistic joy from the tortures they inflict on those of us who must afterward remove their "labor" from our driveways. They always seem to smile broadly as they pass by, supposedly "clearing our streets.” How else can one interpret their attitude? Never once have I noticed them hanging their heads in shame as they're shoving that hard packed snow right back into our neat, freshly cleared driveways and on out sidewalks. How can they sleep at night, after they've inflicted such extreme tortures on their fellow citizens?

Oh, well, I guess the resolution to my problem is to move to a snowless community - such as Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, or the Carolinas. But, if I did that, what would the Lord use to grow my patience? I shudder to imagine the response to that question!

On second thought, I’d better remain here and endeavor to be as pure as the driven snow is before the snow-plows sully it.






Editor's Comment: The author invites reader responses to this article.

About the Writer Author
State: New York
Country: United States
Email: Josprel@yahoo.com
Website:
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