Where does the time go

I can't believe that January is almost over - it was just yesterday that we were celebrating Christmas - and Lent is coming very fast this year.

St. Paul's folk - please remember that the annual meeting is at 9 a.m. on Sunday - please come and hear about what went on this year.

Youth group parents - also remember the parents meeting after the 10 a.m. service - we have all (or at least most) of the information about the mission trip - come and hear the details.

Why, O Lord

I think that all of us looking at the pictures and hearing the stories from Haiti this week can't help but ask "why, God." Why these people? Why this? Why now? Why are their earthquakes at all? Why do people suffer?

I wish that I could say that there are easy answers (or indeed any answers at all) for those questions. But if there are I certainly haven't found them.

I think that situtations like this bring the question of faith into focus. We say that we believe that God loves and cares for his children. That is easy to say when all goes well, it is more difficult when things go badly.

But I think the challenge is to seek the presence of God in the midst of the things we don't understand - to look for the face of God in the rubble and see where the light of God shines through the darkness. It isn't a very satisfying answer, but it's the best that I can do right now.

Snow

I know that for those of you who live in Buffalo the snow is nothing new, but I have to admit my admiration - after 15 inches of snow over two days the streets (and the walks and drives at the church) are clear - there are few closings and people are just going about their business - this same amount of snow in December shut down Washington DC for 3 days.

It just goes to show that human beings can cope with anything once they have the tools and the experiance - which leads me to consider - what are the things that we think are too hard to over come because we don't have the right tools or haven't dealt with them before?