When I neglect morning prayer, I forget to notice God’s presence.
In fact, God is blessing us, each day, in our material, fleshly concerns. This morning, for instance, in the prayer for Wednesday, in the resource I use: “God of all mercies, we praise you that you have brought us to this new day, brightening our lives with the dawn of promise and hope in Jesus Christ. Especially we thank you for the warmth of sunlight, the wetness of rain and snow, and all that nourishes the earth …”
Those “dots” are included in the text. They are an invitation to pause and to give thanks for those few things. And, at the dawn of this day — which will be warmer than the past days have been, with lots of wet, melting snow nourishing the earth – such an invitation to prayer is right on the mark! What daily blessings we receive from God our creator!
And — how easy it is to be totally oblivious to that. (”…” Pause to pray on that!)
Today it’ll be back to normal, after the snow. The temperature didn’t even get below freezing last night, and the roads are clear, so I’ll be able to drive my totally impractical little sports car.
Our church driveway was finally plowed yesterday, just in time for several folks who arrived for a meeting to plan the congregation’s new picture directory. Folks on the Property Committee had been frustrated by the delay. They thought the pavement would have been plowed the day before. We were making contingency plans in case we were still snow-bound today, thinking of how to get the pre-school children into the building. It’s stress that, for the most part, we don’t have to worry about here in the south!
There’s been a lot of teeth gnashing in Richmond, because the city has done a poor job of snow removal. It makes me think of my three winters in Chicago, when I was in seminary. In our neighborhood of Hyde Park, we NEVER had our streets cleared! That’s because our Alderman (former Olympic sprinter, Ralph Metcalf) was an Independent. Since he wouldn’t pledge allegiance to the Dailey machine, the Mayor punished us for that. So, we’d have two ruts running down the street. To unload groceries, we’d have to leave the car running, in the middle of the street in front of the apartment building, dash in to put the bags in the lobby, and then dart back out to move the car to the seminary parking lot. (That was plowed because the seminary paid someone to do it!)
I was interested enough to follow Chicago politics for several years later, after I took my first call, in Towson, Maryland. While we were still in Chicago, Mayor Dailey had died. He was replaced by Mike Bilandic, who was appointed chiefly because he was such a loyal Dailey disciple. But, in his first attempt to actually be elected mayor, Bilandic was DEFEATED — by a WOMAN — who was not even part of the machine!! The reason? The voters were still angry because there had been a huge snow the winter before, and the city hadn’t cleared the streets! (At least that’s what the political analysists concluded, in their election post-mortem.)
