snow day

Best-laid plans...

That east wind failed to keep the snow from the Willamette Valley (and SW Washington) yesterday, and things haven't improved since.  The top photo was taken this morning, after almost 3 inches of snow fell yesterday in Newberg.  The bottom photo was taken about 20 minutes ago, and these hydrangeas-cum-"cotton"-plants have grown fluffier looking since then.  

Accordingly, I'm sitting here in the home office, typing, rather than enjoying collegiality and the ability to do something productive for a great organization at what should have been my first meeting on the board of directors of Lutheran Community Services NW.

Great.

On days like this, the weather is a good reminder of how much of our lives falls outside our control.  I can't control the snow.  I can't control the reality that winter weather + northwest drivers don't mix well.

On a day that feels outside my control, the birds who spent the (not-snowing) morning poking around on the branches of the tree outside are a useful reminder.  Birds don't have much control over most aspects of their lives.  They simply do their bird-behavior thing.  Goodness knows trees don't have much agency.  And yet the ecosystem outside my window demonstrates something pretty cool about this world.  The tree is setting buds in preparation for leafing out this spring.  It needs those buds to grow.  That doesn't, however, prevent the birds from spending their days pecking at these same buds, dining away on what must, judging by the tree's popularity, be a delicacy.  And yet the tree will put forth leaves later this spring anyway.  It can feed the birds and take care of itself at the same time.  The birds are just being birds; the tree is just being a tree.  Totally at the whim of nature, and yet totally provided for.

We humans often aren't very good at dealing with things outside our control.  On a day like today I need to repeat to myself a mantra of the birds and the trees.  Let go... trust... and rest in God's provision.