Woke up this morning thinking about my friend Jimmy Fraser... I miss him. Not sure why the snow makes me think about him, except it came to mind how a couple times when we were building the Fraser house we couldn't get down the driveway because of the drifting snow. One time we got the "Ol' red ford pickup" so stuck we had to borrow a tractor and get it out and then spend three hours plowing snow so we could get material a quarter mile down the drive and into the house to work.
I also had to smile at Jimmy this morning because when I got to the church parking lot the City of ML... thank you so much... had plowed about a two foot high burm of snow into our driveway. I wasn't quite sure what to do... I thought about going home, but then I had another idea. I backed up across the street (four lanes) and just hit the gas and plowed through! Snow washed up over the hood and windshield of the car so that I couldn't see a thing! It was so much fun I did if two more times each way. It made me smile and think of Jimmy because he always laughed at me having a "Volvo". I love Volvo's. I started wanting a Volvo station wagon because I saw so many in Europe - and I have a distant relative in Sweden who works for Volvo. I don't think Jimmy would ever have owned a Volvo, but I know he enjoyed giving me a hard time about having one. When I got my second Volvo station wagon I think he considered me a bit of lost cause. He never saw me driving it without giving me a hard time about it. I actually half got the second one so Jimmy could give me a hard time about it! I think he would have loved me plowing through the burm into our parking lot with it. I could have bragged about it and he would have smiled and not said much... but he would have said something - of that I'm sure. The thing is, I'm just not sure you can really plow snow with a Ford Taurus... or a Buick La Sabre... but all day long in the Volvo!! I might just buy a plow for the front!
The thing is, Jimmy can't give me a hard time now... at least not that I can hear because he"s gone on into the hands of our Father... mine and his. Knowing that he's there and not somewhere else is helpful and a comfort... but it doesn't end how I miss seeing and talking to him here. My mom's there too... and Bill Stout... and Stella and Myrtle and Patrick Knesek... and many others. Sometime I'll be there too, unless the end of all things comes before this frail body gets ultimately tired and expires. I don't know if our presence with the Father between death and resurrection will be a waking presence or a restful sleep - and I don't really care either way. If it's a waking presence then I'm sure Jimmy is smiling now... if it's a restful sleep then he deserved it... he was a hard worker.
Whenever the first snow comes and blankets my world with a white covering I turn to the James Taylor version of "In the Bleak Midwinter." It's my favorite arrangement of that old hymn. I think winter is a perfect picture of death in so many ways. Everything is dormant and waiting for the Spring. Nothing is growing, blooming, or bearing fruit - but all creation is waiting during winter, preparing, gathering strength, and getting ready for a new season of growing - getting ready to Spring to new life when the warmth of the sun breaks out and thaws the winter, warms the ground, and the snow melts watering the dormant seeds in the ground causing them to burst forth into new life. I just can't help but think that God gives us winter so that we can look forward to Spring and remember that there will be a new day when the sun will shine and life will burst forth again.
The sun's coming... and the Son too... and someday, who knows how far away, the Son will burst forth and winter and death will be forever ended... in contrast to the days of Narnia when it was always winter and never Christmas we will live when and where it is always Christmas and never winter. If Christmas and Advent reminds us of nothing else I hope it reminds us that HE IS COMING!!
Who's coming? The Messiah - coming for His people; What's His Name? Jesus, Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us, Prince of Peace! What'll he be like? Shining, love, grace, mercy, peace, judgment, King! What's he coming to do? Save his people, rescue, give life, take away pain, suffering, death, weeping, and sorrow.
In the bleak midwinter? What a delightful reminder of the coming Spring.
