Winter.

I keep being told that we are in for a bad winter. I remember my grandmother used to have all sorts of old wives tales about the prediction of a good or bad winter.

If the rowan trees were thick with berries it was a sure sign that the winter that was to come would be a really bad one. I always thought that the number of berries on trees and bushes had more to do with the summer and autumn weather. had they been such that they promoted good crops.

What exactly is a bad winter and what is a good winter?  I have heard stories of the temperature getting so cold that the rain that had gathered in the boughs of trees froze so solid that the tree split right down the middle. 

I remember one winter  I had been asked to conduct a funeral for the mother of a member of my church. The funeral was to take place in the village of her birth. On the day of the funeral as we drove towards the village the snow got worse and worse. By the time we arrived it was up to the roofs of the cars. I remember saying to the funeral attendant, "This is one place I would never want to be living." 

Two weeks later I was invited to become the minister of this very parish.  I had promised myself I would never refuse an invitation to serve, but I thought things could not get worse. I, therefore, accepted the invitation and ended up in the very place I had said I never wanted to be.

The following winter I had a young man doing community service with me. This was instead of serving a prison sentence. It was called community payback. There had been a heavy fall of snow so in what I thought was an act of thought and care I asked him if he would clear a path from my door to the church gate. I said when he was finished no matter how much time it had taken he was free to go. 

He refused. Said he was not shovelling snow in those conditions. I told him to just go home then.  of course, I had to say in the weekly report that he had refused to do a task that later took me only half an hour. 

The next week I was visiting the prison where I was the chaplain. There he was clearing a pathway from the gate to the front door of the prison. 

I asked him if he might not have been better clearing my snow and going home to his family rather than his cell?

There are times when things are bad and misfortune comes our way but with the correct attitude, we can make sure that things do not get worse. 

The parish I had said I did not ever want to be in ended up to be a ministry I enjoyed and counted as a positive part of my life, far from my initial reaction to being there.

The first day of winter is not only the start of a long seemingly dismal time it is also the first day of us heading to the onward march towards spring.

Some of us dislike winter others find the snow and cold a refreshing experience. It is an attitude of life matter. Nothing ever only gets worse, there are limits to all things. 

There is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes for the weather we have. But there may be those who have no option and maybe we have the power to change even that. 

Have a wonderful winters day. Yes I know some of my readers are in the middle of summer, enjoy your sun, winter will surely come. 

Grasp the day and make it the best that you can.