Being Church in the Snow

     The following is unlike anything else that I have put on this blog, or on my other blogs.  It is a personal essay written as much for myself as anyone else, but something I thought may be of interest to some.  I have long wanted to write a book of such essays.  I will try to write more similar essays if there is interest.

Being Church in the Snow

     These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.  And preach as you go, saying ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”

Matthew 10:5-8

     “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”

Matthew 25:40

     I left work yesterday when the snow started to fall quite hard, then began to stick to the ground.  At first it fell slowly, then a little faster.   But it didn’t matter the amount.  It was so cold that many roads became impassible.  It took me about three hours to get home, give or take a few minutes one-way or the other.  I was lucky.  It took some of my co-workers who live close to me 4, 5, or even 6 hours before they made it home.  Others didn’t make it home.  They slept in hotels, or, worse, in their cars on the side of the road, trying their best to stay warm before help could arrive.

     I only got home faster because I drive a GMC truck, a large one, the type that goes where few others can who don’t drive something similar.  I took back roads, where pavement often ends, but where the snow and the ice had accumulated much quicker than in other places.  At first, I thought it was a good idea, but wasn’t so sure once I had traveled a few miles in a little less than an hour.  There were very few people—a few trucks about the same size as mine passed me, a house scattered here or there.  I knew roughly where I was going and my plan for getting to my house.  But I became quite nervous at one point.

     I have at varying time throughout my life suffered from an almost neurotic anxiety.  I still suffer, and it was acute yesterday, crossing over steep, icy hills where my truck—large and powerful as it may be—slid this way and that, but, thank God, still managed to make it over each one.

     I practice the Jesus Prayer as much as possible.  One of my prayer ropes typically resides in my left hand, or when I’m not using it, on my right wrist.  I always fancy that it makes me more still, more calm, more loving, but then I get in situations like yesterday, and I wonder if that’s the case.  I prayed to God, begged God, to get me home safely; I prayed for my co-workers and others, ones who I didn’t know to make it home safely, for God to give them peace, to comfort them.  But I didn’t feel comfortable.  I was anxious and tense.  I kept thinking that maybe it was better if I had taken a more conventional route home, the interstate or one of the large highways.  I feared my truck was going to get stuck in a ditch or cease making it up snow-covered hills.  My cell phone was only working intermittently, and I had a brief vision of freezing to death—or coming damn close—in the Alabama backwoods, where no one knew where I was, and where no state safety crews would be able to reach me.

     The thoughts came to me: I shouldn’t feel this way.  I should trust in the loving care of God, ever-present and filling all things, even mud-drenched and ice-clad pick-up trucks.  But I did feel that way.  Nervous.  Anxious beyond what should be reasonable.  Frightened.

     But then another thought came to me for some reason: Christ’s twelve disciples.  They’ve gotten, it seems to me at least, quite a bit of bad press over the centuries.  But they also seem to deserve it.  Rarely do they seem to get the message that Jesus is giving them.  And when they actually do get it, they either seem incapable of living out its teachings, or they just forget about it altogether in a relatively brief amount of time.  Here I have in mind Peter, who in one breath, when Jesus asks him, “Who do you say that I am?” replies, without thinking but with utter certainty, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  But then, within moments, Jesus tells him, “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

     Which makes Peter, makes the other disciples, amazingly like us, amazingly like me.  We know, but we forget.  We have peace, but we have anxiety.  And, yet, these are the people that Jesus calls, not just to be his disciples, but to be his Church.

     I crossed to the top of another hill.  Now the snow was coming down with more ferocity.  The road was little more than a sheet of ice.  A car was in front of me.  It was stopped.  The hill in front of the car, in front of me, was of a very steep decline, followed by another steep incline.

     After about 5 minutes of waiting on the car in front—another truck had pulled up behind me—I stepped out of my truck, and walked up to the car.  A young girl was driving, 17 or 18 years old, another girl in the passenger seat.  They were crying.  They needed to turn their car around, knowing they weren’t going to make it up the next hill, but were too afraid to attempt to do so.  They didn’t want to end up in one of the ditches to either side of the road.

     The man in the truck behind me got out of it and approached.  He was amicable, even seemed to be in a good mood, though concerned for the upset girls.  He and I helped the girls get their car turned around.  They were thankful, wiped their tears, smiled a little, then slowly drove away.

     He asked me where I was trying to go.  I told him.  He gave me some general directions and a few tips for navigating the roads ahead.  I thanked him, but he followed me just to make sure I made it down and up the next set of hills, then he turned into what I guess was his driveway.

     The twelve that were chosen—broken men in many ways before coming to Jesus—continued to be broken men after becoming disciples.  They knew Christ as their friend who they dearly loved, and certainly dearly loved them.  They ate with him.  They sat next to him while he spoke all that he speaks in the Gospels (and more).  They walked the length and breadth of the vast countryside with him.  Yet they continued to be broken human beings.

     As we continue to be broken human beings.  Their primary calling seemed to be that they were to heal.  It seems as if that is still their primary calling, for we are now them, healing in whatever ways are possible, however large, however small.  On roads.  In the snow.