It's March 29 and it's snowing lightly. It's the first full day of the school spring break, and two days before the opening of the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair, one of the big events of the Brandon year. When we came here five years ago, we were told two things:
    1.   You're not a true Brandonite until you've been to the Winter Fair.
    2.   There is always a big snowstorm during fair week.

As for #1, I guess I just make it, since I have attended fair events twice. As for #2 -- it's true, at least in the time we've been here! We are currently sitting under a snowfall warning, expecting 15 - 30 cm of snow between now and tomorrow evening. Several local clergy have out of town commitments tomorrow, including the Bishop. We shall see if they are able to keep them.

As I learned in school, the climate of the Canadian prairies is "continental extreme," meaning cold winters, hot summers, and dry. It gets very cold here in mid-winter, but as we tell people from central Canada (aka Toronto and its environs, aka "the centre of the universe") it's a dry cold. You have to experience it to understand what I mean. What a "dry cold" means is that the coldest months (Dec. - Feb.) tend not to get a lot of precipitation. The snowiest months are November and March, when temperatures are more moderate, and the air can hold enough moisture. So we always have to expect some kind of snowfall in this month -- sometimes in significant amounts.

The snow comes. We shovel it. It melts. Life goes on. People ask us why we live here, and I rather like the answer given by a parishioner a few weeks ago, during some -30C weather: "Because we can." She had spent a year in Singapore, and knew that she couldn't live in the constant heat and humidity there. But she CAN live here -- she doesn't have to like it, but she knows how to do it.

So -- I don't have to like the annual March dump of snow, but I can deal with it, like any other prairie boy!

We live with annoyances, some big, some small. A small one: our dog has developed annoying habits around needing to go out repeatedly right around supper time. But we deal with it, because we love the old fella. He'll be 14 in June, and we don't know how much longer we'll have his company. Another annoyance is the news of pending changes to the CBC Radio 2 schedule, de-emphasizing classical music. Aarrggh!

And there are always annoyances in church life -- some big, some small. I meet weekly with a group of clergy from various denominations, and we find that some of the things that get to us cut right across denominational and theological divides. They get expressed in different ways in different churches, but there are remarkable similarities. It's good to have this group!

The really big annoyances (church or otherwise) get worked out on a larger stage, of course, and usually they're just like the weather. You can't do anything much about it, so you learn to live through the storms. The storms will pass, and God will be with us through it all.

Let us strive through all the storms of life to stay aware of God's eternal and loving presence.