The Agony and the Irony

In my last few posts, I've been tracking the sad fate of my students, waiting for a snowday with an apocalyptic anticipation. Well, their desires for this Monday look to be cruelly thwarted once again. When the radio makes those crazy noises, "boop, beeeeeep, bzzbzzbzz, booo, beee, bop," I usually anticipate either nuclear annihilation or the subduction of the entire continent of North America. The radio made these noises Friday, and then told me about a coming blizzard, the likes of which Central Virginia had never seen, that would last for the entire day of Saturday. This caused a whole lot of Shifletts, Shiflettes, Shifflets, and possibly some Chiphlettes to make a run on toilet paper at Food Lion.
When storms of this nature roll through the Thomas Jefferson area, we can usually count on at least two days of school to be nixed. So, I was anticipating an unpleasant return trip from D.C. yesterday afternoon. Making our way from Ryan and Rebecca's apartment to Paul's was a little arduous, but made much easier by the presence of few cars on the road, a manual transmission, and the will to use it.
However, Janna and I decided that it would be a great idea to swing by IKEA in Potomac Mills, since we don't come up that way all that often. Janna wanted to get a new mirror, and I had my eye on some more of those VINK CD Racks, of which I had purchased one, but could not find on the IKEA website. (By the way, for a company that does a significant catalogue business, they have very few items that can actually be purchased online.) Anyways, this resulted us in getting off the highway at two different wrong exits, asking directions at a McDonalds and a Shell station, calling our wonderful friends Judy and Liz on my new cell phone, and eventually finding IKEA, only to find out that it was closed due to inclement weather. Janna's suggestion, after getting lost the first time, that we just go home, was not acceptable to yours truly, who would not allow himself to be thwarted by his own stupidity, only to find that such a conclusion to our journey was inevitable.
Resigned to our fates, we headed back the long way, on I-95 to I-64. Conditions were getting better and better as we header farther south, so I became more bold in the left lane. Eventually, I had gotten myself out to a place where I was driving outside of the "wolf packs" we learned to fear in driver's ed. I had passed some folks a while ago, and was making a move to get back into the center lane. As I did so, I hit a rough spot of ice and snow, which caused my car to spin out of control. I am grateful for the years of winter driving in Chicago and Grand Rapids, because I did not have the ability to use my cognitive faculties during this episode. However, my autonomic nervous system remembered to steer into the swerve and to pump the brakes (yes, we're too cheap to have ABS). Also, I am grateful for the angels that guided our car, as I was unable to use my own brain. As we spun, at first I was convinced we were headed into the ever-deepening ditch, which although eventually blocked by a guard rail, I was convinced would be my final resting place. Suddenly, the car completed a 180 degree spin, and then I was faced with on-coming traffic that I was convinced was coming to ram into me.
Fortunately, the car had enough momentum to gently slide onto the shoulder with nary a scratch to ourselves or to our vehicle. The angels on our shoulders had seen to that. A good samaritan pulled over to see if we were alright, which we told him we were. I hesitate to mention that he was a black man, but I think it only makes the good samaritan metaphor even better. We got back on the road, and needless to say, spent most of the rest of the next few hours driving in the right lane and singing hymns of thanksgiving in hastily improvised harmony.
A Charles Krauthammer essay in the Jan. 24th issue of TIME magazine, suggested that the two news stories that best act as bookends on human nature are the Indian Ocean Tsunami-- demonstrating the true frailty of humanity--and the Huygens probe to Titan--demonstrating the heights to which the human spirit can soar. I thought it was a nice dichotomy. However, the truth of the matter is, no matter how advanced our technology gets, we are still an insignificant part of the whole of the universe on a cosmic scale. What makes this so remarkable is the faith that billions of us share that we are so special to the creator of the cosmos, that he is willing to interact in our daily lives, for instance, sparing Janna and I from ending our days on an interstate outside of Ashland, VA.
However, possibly (and I must say that I am still unadvisedly keeping my hopes up) Joan and David, my sister and brother-in-law, will be moving there this next fall. Joan is flying out here for an interview in February, and maybe she will become a pseudo-Virginian too.
But for my students, who are already Virginians, they are going to have to deal with a snow day dissapointment again, quite unusual for this particular latitude. It looks like the snow on the roads has already melted, and the best we can hope for is a two-hour delay tomorrow. For most of them, the "best" that they are going to get is a reprieve from Church, which was cancelled for pretty much everyone today. However, Janna and I did read through the assigned lectionary readings today, not out of a spirit of duty, but of thanksgiving, for the eternal Lord of the Universe offers mercy to us all on a daily basis. Sometimes we just need to face our own end to see it.
Grace and Peace from Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with all the angels in glory forever and ever, Amen.