September 18, 2024
Leadership Notes
How are you surviving Heat Dome of Death 2024? This has been a weird last several weeks. It’s like something out of those Hobbit stories… instead of Second Lunch, we get Second Summer. Depending on your weather whims, it’s either a good thing or a not-so-good thing. I’m somewhere in the middle.
Our oldest son was born on September 24, at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. We lived in Kansas City, Missouri. It was the second full day of fall. That time of year in Kansas City was decently temperate.
Less than two years later, we moved to Minnesota. Fall hit differently up north. We developed a family protocol on when to fire up the furnace. Only after September 24. Which, in Minnesota, out of the five years we lived there, meant every year around the second or third week of September, things got quite dicey. When we moved here to Michigan {one of the best places in which to live} the protocol was still in place. Some years it was hard to hold the line.
Side note – our youngest son was born in Minnesota, and now lives in Minneapolis. Oh, the places you will go.
I wonder if we should make our new family furnace protocol our youngest granddaughter’s birthday…October 21?
Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not using our family’s idiosyncrasies to make a case for global warming. Far from it. I’m simply awestruck by the vagaries of creation. God gave us unpredictability within the larger scope of predictability. There is an ebb-and-flow to the consistency of creation. Sunrises and sunsets. The comings-and-goings of comets. It’s all there. God’s marvelous handiwork. Always stunning.
This is going to be an interesting fall. We’re blessed to be able to live through it. I’m reminded of the first two verses of Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee:
Joyful, joyful, we adore You,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow'rs before You,
Op'ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!
All Your works with joy surround You,
Earth and heav'n reflect Your rays,
Stars and angels sing around You,
Center of unbroken praise;
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flow'ry meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain
Praising You eternally!
Let the experts sound their alarms. Regardless of what’s in the forecast, I’m simply going to enjoy the ride. And keep the snow shovel and snowblower ready for action!
And now, your Moment of Spurgeon:
"Saints by myriads have died singing, for they have overcome the
last enemy by the blood of the Lamb. Oh, you that were never
washed in Jesus' blood, I dread to think of your dying. What will
you do without the Saviour?"
With Much Love and Affection,
Richard
P.S. “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God, for it is a cup of blessing.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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