There’s no business like snow business when it comes to turning schedules upside down. Schools from counties around all around are getting blasted for calling off class, for not calling off class, or for sending out the buses and then changing their minds.
It’s not easy being the one who has to make the call, knowing that some people will be made at you not matter what.
Fortunately for churches, much of the bad weather has come during the week, so calling off Sunday services hasn’t been a big issue, though many Wednesday evening programs have been cancelled.
At Campbell, we’ve missed a Monday and two Tuesdays in a row, with things not looking particularly good for Thursday. Next week we have “reading days” (a nice alias for spring break), so some students will be out of class for three weeks straight. Let’s hope the freaky frigidity will retreat enough for us to get back on a regular schedule by then.
In the meantime, there are opportunities for writing and other work at home, mixed in with bundling up for long walks in the snow and making pots of chili, soup, and hot chocolate …
… and for feeding the birds. I’m sure our feathery friends wouldn’t starve if we didn’t put out extra seeds and bread crumbs, but there’s something about watching birds cavorting about the snow that warms the soul. Our back yard is tiny, but in one morning we can see titmice, black-capped chickadees, towhees, juncos, goldfinches, cardinals, sparrows, mourning doves, wrens, brown thrashers, bluebirds, and a couple of others I don’t recognize.
And among the birds, a piggish squirrel who climbs like a — well, a squirrel — and claims the feeder as his own personal larder.
He ticks me off, but it’s the animal equivalent of running to the grocery story for bread, eggs, and milk before the storm, I suppose.
I haven’t seen the movie “Birdman,” which recently won the Academy Award for best picture, but I’m perfectly happy keeping an eye the real things, the small flitting wonders of God’s creation that constantly call for gratitude.
Professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, North Carolina, and the Contributing Editor and Curriculum Writer at Good Faith Media.
