Friends,

Before I try to tap into some meaningful touchy-feely stuff, here is the most important things you need to know:

First and foremost, know that the world is not working the way it should. We knew this going into the storm last Sunday, but this is to a significantly greater degree than I had imagined. Our strategy for plowing the parking lot made sense; however, we inadvertently created ideal conditions for making a thick layer of ice directly on the asphalt, and it is nearly impossible to get up. Snow plows do nothing, we have spread all the salt that we could find, and I even brought my little tractor down to try to break it up, and the parking lot is still very treacherous.

We are not alone. If you drive around the world is functioning, but barely and many are still stuck in their homes and who knows when schools will open back up.

Go and read the news and know that the world is not working the way that it should and I urge to exercise caution when you leave home. If you need to talk or anything else, please let us know.

Here are changes that are happening given the ice:

· We will not have in-person worship on Sunday. This Sunday we will have:

o 9:00 am Bible Study with Kyle on Zoom. Here is the link. I’m assuming he doesn’t read these, so I’m going to let you in on a secret. He doesn’t think anyone to will join his Zoom. Especially if you were planning on joining, join anyways. It would be hilarious if a hundred people joined and we all acted like the crowd was expected.

o 10:00 am Worship livestreamed to YouTube and Facebook.

o Everything else that day will be canceled, and expect things to be shut down here for the foreseeable future.

· The annual meeting has been re-scheduled for February 8th at 9:00 am in the Parish Hall. This is where we will elect new vestry members and hear reports from the Church leadership.

Now for the touchy-feely stuff. I have a cold. Maybe it’s a sinus infection. I don’t know. I just know that I feel miserable and I didn’t sleep when last night. I typically get something like this every winter, and I thought I may have dodged the bullet this year, but alas, here I am all sniffly. Two days ago, I felt fine, but I was stressed with all the changes happening because of the ice. I wasn’t aware of my own wellness and could see the challenges I was facing in that moment. A week ago, the world was free of ice, and I was hopefully for the snow days of my youth where you could go sledding and not walk away from the hill feeling beat up. If you read the Gospels carefully, you can get the sense of how the disciples yearned for Jesus after he died and was risen. They were filled with faith from his various appearances to them, but they told the stories of when he was alive and walking with them, back when they didn’t know to be thankful for that time, they were just worried about how the hell they were going to feed all of those people who came to listen to their savior.

Be suspicious, that not too long from know your future self will yearn for who you are right now.

That was the most effort I’ve put into thinking all day, now it is time to wallow in my cold, take some Sudafed and take a nap.

See you all on Sunday!

-Nick