Snowball

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I would have been preaching at that time on Christmas Eve, preaching some variation of my usual holiday sermon. But a huge blizzard had blown in, canceling my service for that night, and for Christmas day also. Instead, I was sitting in front of a toasty fire, drinking a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows, and watching the news, waiting for a weather update.

The anchorman did a story about a warehouse burning down earlier in the day. I was relieved to discover that no one had been hurt, although a number of stray cats had been seen fleeing into the driving snow. The weather update came on and the weatherman joked about “cold kitties” being out there for the next few days, but that the worst of the blizzard should blow through by Christmas night.

Rudolph’s nose would have to glow extra bright for Santa to make it through that storm.

I could hear the wind beating the shutters against the sides of the church, whistling through the bell tower; the sound echoed throughout the sanctuary. The apartment my dear wife and I had shared for so long (the Lord took her three summers past) was built into the back of the church and the walls separating it from the church proper were thin, and some strange quirk in the architecture led to sounds being made in the church getting amplified by the time they propagated to my living room.

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