Snow Day
Fingers crossed, eyes glued to the bottom of the screen during the evening news, and the prepared sack lunch in the fridge already eaten. You couldn’t be any more confident the tomorrow will be a snow day. A whole day to goof around as snow continues to pileup outside. Days of playing games in the snow and then cozying up close to a toasty fire are the winter days I longed for as a kid.
About ten years ago, my High School job was a camp counselor at Camp Joy, just a few miles down the road from where I grew up. We mostly served the youth from the urban core of Cincinnati. While the kids were with us in the outdoors, nearly everything they got to do was a first-time experience. Everything from fishing, to seeing a deer, to even being able to see the Big Dipper in the night sky, it was all a first for them. To be honest, prior to working at this camp, I had no idea that not everyone gets to experience the same joys that I experience on a nearly daily basis. Working here taught me some of life’s most important lessons about the nature of privilege.
One morning, I was leading a group of campers through the woods for the cafeteria for breakfast. To pass time I asked them, “What is your favorite thing to do on a snow day?” They each took turns sharing as the rest of us nodded in agreement. Eventually, the only one left to give a response was the little boy holding my hand as we walked. I said to him directly, “What’s your favorite thing about a snow day?” There was a long silence until he finally said, “I don’t like snow days because there is no school that day, and that means I don’t get to eat that day.” My heart sank into my stomach. Since then, I have never desired a snow day in the same way again.
As temperatures drop, God’s most precious children grow colder. Some families are even forced to live outside as social services become overcrowded. More and more children are battling with hunger as our calling to respond becomes more deafening. This holiday season, I witnessed the Holy Spirit at work through Messiah Lutheran Church as we responded to God’s call. Messiah’s youth adopted a family for Christmas, our knitting group crafted countless blankets, tags flew off this year’s Giving Tree, hats and mittens filled the narthex, and our generosity continues to make a lasting difference.
Although this response is commendable, there is still much of God’s work to be done. What a blessing it is that God does not take a “snow day.” In fact, it’s in the bitter cold that God’s work is needed most. Now is when our love for the world is a necessity. When our desires tempt us to play in the snow, or lounge around the comfort of home, that’s when God calls us out to serve one another. Rest and play are an important part of our lives, but it’s on a snow day that God urges us into moments of ministry. Through God, the air may grow colder, but our hearts grow warmer.
With a servant heart,
Pr. Lucas McSurley
Photo by Nathan Wolfe