TRYING TO FIX THE WEATHER

One Sunday in January I was serving as a Church Parking Lot Attendant. My friend, The Turkey Meister, leads this effort at our Church. He calls that role The First Impressions Team. Which probably sounds a bit classier than the title I used.
It was brisk that day, and the wind was probably blowing at 20+ mph with a pretty good “bite” to it. One of our older ladies walked up, kind of “leaning into” the wind and commented she sure hopes it warms up soon. This lady is small in height/ build and that NE wind was pushing her around pretty good. Upon the conclusion of the Morning Worship Service, the wind had picked up even more and after descending the stairs and rounding the building’s corner, it came close to knocking her off her feet! I won’t repeat her comment that time. Let me just say it did not reflect any improvement of her opinion of the weather conditions!
Less that 48 hours later one of my good friends from Church texted me to say that the 80-degree mid -day temperature was just WAY too hot for this time of the year. Now this fellow is the physical opposite of the previous person mentioned above. A former Defensive Lineman in college who became a Football Coach, one of his legs probably weighs more than that lady. I commented I was going to write a story about weather and dedicate it to him.
Those two extreme opposite perspectives reminded me of a Tale from back when I was spending a good bit of time out at the Home Place as a kid working with my Grand Dad. You could find me starting at a pretty young age glued to his side whether in the fields, pastures, or cattle pens. Of course, none of those places are much fun to be in come July and August or December and January. I was often either cold as an ice cycle or burning up and drenched in sweat.
Not surprisingly, sometimes I would whine about the weather. After a complaint or two, Charlie Rosenauer would stop whatever we were doing, take off his hat, and look me sternly in the eye.
“Boy”, he would say. “Do you really think the Good Lord needs your help with the weather”? Of course, such an admonition would put me back in the right frame of mind plenty fast and I would mumble “No Sir”. “Okay. Then get back to what you are supposed to be doing and let GOD be GOD.” That was the end of that conversation, and it was best NOT to bring up the topic again for a while!
Far be it from me to speak in such a way to the fine lady or my good coaching friend. But the reminder for me is that any of us can spend a bunch of time focusing on stuff we simply CANNOT control. One of my finest Mentors in a long line of some excellent ones, had a saying that comes to my mind while writing this Tale. Long ago gone from this Earth, I still remember he would often tell me :
“Don’t fret on trying to fix things you can’t fix. Just try your best to do the right thing as often as you can with those things you can do something about”. I reckon that is good advice even today. And last time I looked, one of those things we don’t have much say about is trying to fix the weather!

For Coach Jim R.