Snow and Sabbath

Since my beginning of my seminary education in August, most of my attention to writing has been in the form of papers and journaling, hence my absence from blogging. Here is a reflection I wrote for a weekly newsletter as part of my position as a children's ministry director. Given recent snowy happenings in Boston, I thought I'd share. 

Since my relocation to Boston in 2012 from a place with a reasonably temperate climate, I have enjoyed observing myself and others sink into the culture created by weather. I remember being confused upon moving here when I would hear people talk about the impending 6-month winter. "Could it really be that bad?" I would think to myself.

I reflect on this to serve as a preface to how delightful and fascinated I have been during this most recent blizzard (Juno, I think they're calling it?). The grocery store crowds and emptying of bread and milk shelves, the rush to get home before the storm begins and locating water bottles, and flashlights and batteries tucked into forgotten corners of closets. It struck me during my day off from school yesterday, as my roommates and I played cards and watched movies under warm blankets and watched the wind and snow do their dances outside our windows, that snow days are kind of like nature's way of enforcing Sabbath. With a travel ban in place, schools and offices closed across the city, and public transit closed down, what else is there to do but pause? In a society dependent on the constant activity of consuming and producing, it seems as if a forced day off is a divine invitation to stop and be. (And frankly, I think this whole 'work from home during the blizzard' business is as bit of boohockey. But maybe that's just me.) 

I am grateful for time to pause, and for those who continued to work during the storm in the service of others. May we be blessed with compassion and mindfulness as we continue our journey in this new year.