Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar/77

Contributor - Peter J. Yff

Title - Editorial

Topic - Editorial

Virtually everyone around has expressed his opinion of the winter now ending. It set records in most areas. It taxed the human spirit, as well as strained the man made equipment used to clear away its ravages. It did something more, however it caused a lot of people to think about life, and priorities. Particularly was this true for folk who were caught in the heights of snow storms, or who were marooned in their homes, or who were forced to do without the accustomed comforts of hydro and automatic heat.

This writer had one such personal experience in late January. The weather, which had been rather favourable, and which was predicted to remain so, became otherwise violently so. Visibility went to zero, and highway speeds to four or five miles per hour, cars were stalled everywhere, trucks jack-knifed. Where could one go? Knowing that a service centre was located a few miles ahead, we kept going somehow. Finally its sanctuary was reached, and never did shelter look better. Even the sign posted on the door "All roads closed to Windsor" did little to dampen anyone's spirits. It was only a comment on the obvious. One knew that it would be awhile before anything could move.

There were many people there, each with his or her own story to tell. Trips interrupted, cars abandoned or wrecked, lives endangered. People confessed that they had prayed like they hadn't prayed in years, and unashamedly they meant it. People responded to each other's needs in remarkable ways. We saw it in the concern expressed for, and care given to people who had to walk the last mile or so, because their cars simply quit on them. One could see it in the sympathy and help provided the man who collapsed on arriving at the centre. He was a heart patient, and death was close at hand whatever would have been attempted. Someone's heart tablets (his own were somehow left behind in the abandoned car), the ministration of two nurses, the emergency equipment gotten there somehow by four wheel drive vehicles and sheer determination, the calming effect of a quiet prayer and the assurance that God was in this place, too . . . all of it combined to help the patient, who did survive, both his trip by makeshift four wheel drive ambulance, and two serious heart spells.

My point in sharing this after the fact is not just to recount a story. There are thousands of such accounts. Rather, I would like to call attention to the beauty and wonder that result when one human cares for another. I would like to caution all of us not to wait until a storm or -a crisis arrives to appreciate people, or to respond to their needs. It would so greatly enrich life day by day if more of us could appreciate the things we take so much for granted. Warmth. Shelter. Food. The smile of another person. The hand extended to help someone the last steps of the way. We saw so much of this in so many people: the Ontario Provincial Police, the truckers, the C.B. radio people, the staff of a Roman Catholic retreat house who took in many, providing a good bed and warm food and ready cheer.

All of this relates to what it means to live a religious life, which is, after all, a caring life. If self denial means anything, it surely means forgetting one's own convenience, and personal advantage, and simply doing what must be done, and receiving enjoyment in it. It surely means to put self second.

Another reason for my writing this is to challenge you not to do what many did the day after . . . which was promptly to forget much of the personal warmth shared, and to begin to complain about how slowly the roads were being cleared, and how long it took to get wreckers to pull cars out. How soon the "normal" ways asserted themselves. Having seen the better way, one wished it would continue longer.

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