St. Joseph of the Lakes

As I write this the weather forecasters are announcing that record cold is coming. The last time it was this cold was in 1994 they say. I suspect by tomorrow morning we will be witnesses to boiling water being thrown into the cold air and immediately becoming snow. It is the standard TV presentation of a cold wintery period. You and I will be complaining about how cold it is and how much we await the coming of summer. I suspect sometime this summer it will become uncomfortably hot and the weather people will point out the historic nature of the heat. Again we will complain about it and wish for cooler weather.

I find myself wondering if it is our complaining that gives guidance to the weather forecasters or is it the weather people who are guiding our discussions about the weather. Those of us who have grown up in Minnesota have experienced cold winters and hot summers throughout our lives. We have bundled up to protect ourselves from the winter’s wind and we have dressed lightly to enjoy the warmth of a summer day. The weather should not be the headlines of daily news, yet it has become one of the greatest entertainments of the present age.

We can not control it, and for the most part; we cannot predict it, yet stab after stab we attempt to do so in order to be entertained. In doing so we avoid the more important discussions of justice among peoples.