Jan. 21, 2025

Winter, Must We? I mean, every year? So it seems. We have these seasons—Summer, Winter, Seedtime and Harvest, cold and heat—I know that because the Lord said so, just after the flood of Noah’s time. (Gen.8:22.) Was there no seasons before Noah’s flood? Very doubtful it seems to me. Hmm, no seasons.

When reading the description, brief as it is, the Lord gave us of the Garden of Eden, it seems to say there was a certain “mist  from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” Then, as Eve was being tempted of the serpent in the Garden, he told her God didn’t want her to become “as gods” which seems to perhaps emphasize they might have known what “becoming as the gods” would look like (Gen.3:5). The other passage which lends the Garden of Eden and even the whole ground in that day, being watered by that mist instead of rain is found in 2Peter 3:5, “…that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.” (Sort of  brings our minds to think dome-like—-could be wrong, of course, it isn’t specific enough to be certain.)

But, remember, the four seasons as we know them, are spoken by the Lord to be there after the rains came. For 1600+ years from Adam to after the flood, they had not rain as we know it. But Noah’s progeny were going to be faced with rain, sleet, snow, as well as heat, drought, and as the first used Scripture (above) says: the four seasons. Like I said in the first line or so, we are going to have Winter whether we like it or not. And I don’t.

[A point-to-ponder: Gen.1:1 says God created the heaven and the earth. Notice both created things are singular, not plural. But 2 Peter 3:5 & 7 both refer to heavens (plural) just as Gen.2:1 spoke of the completed work of the Lord.Now, considering these things, at what point did there become more than one heaven? When the Lord caused the dry land to appear.  Then a firmament came into being, a Heaven as God called it, but not the same as Gen.1:1, so heavens could be written in plural form in Gen.2:1]

When I grew up in Indiana, I thought cold was up there — only the North country. When we moved to Illinois, I saw that cold was over there, also. When we moved to Alabama many years ago, “Winter” as we knew it stayed up North, like it should! After about 5 years we moved back to Illinois for 18 months. That 18 months included the famed “Blizzard of ’78” and once again, showed me that Winter belonged up North. 

But now, after 45 more years, sitting in beautiful Northeast Alabama, we’re faced with the next five days (at least) of grievous Northern weather! The expected high for this period of time will not reach freezing, mostly going to stay in the low teens! Two reasons this isn’t gonna work: 1st, nobody knows how to tolerate or drive in this kind of weather! 2nd, we don’t have enough plumbers to handle all the busted pipes which people don’t know how to correct!  It’s a dilemma, folks. If Winter is going to invade Alabama, some of us must migrate to the South! And just now, my wife is telling me the snow is staying to the South of us! What!?

Ah, well, …. the weather; everybody gripes about it, nobody does anything about it.

From this subject, we’ll turn to what I saw yesterday (Monday) on the around the world TV I have at my fingertips. I saw one side of the political world celebrating wildly and “just so excited to see my President back into the office!” (and, yes, I am glad he’s there, too,) all the way to read the unfathomable reasoning for one former president’s wife to give the reason she didn’t attend the functions. She said she could never put on a phony smile when she faced the politics she hates. Hmmm, that’s funny, her husband, an almost equally hating man was there with his best phony smile, sitting in the place of honor through it all. What is wrong with a person who says she could never put on a plastic smile —every adult person in the world puts on a false front smile almost every day! No, she stayed away because she wanted the opportunity to make a statement of her own for reasons not yet revealed, though suspicions arise. And she thinks trump is a “danger to our democracy”? He should be, since federally, we are a representative republic, and not a democracy. Could be she doesn’t know the difference.

Every state, including Canada and Greenland will be a democracy. But, as a union we have representatives at the elected or constitutionally appointed level which do not come about from the popular vote, but by those whom they represent in the central government which, by the way, is multiplied millions larger than the originators could see yet still equally cast in the roles it takes to fulfill the desires of those who formed her. Bureaucracy be hanged; we are championed by secretaries!

By the time Spring has arrived, let’s talk more about politics, doesn’t that seem like a good time to make an assessment of progress? Too soon? Summer, then? Fall/Harvest time? No? Ahh, now we’re back to the Winter! We never will get this right!! “Tis the Season to be ……..”

Thanks for reading, the Elder