We Brits can be a bit obsessed with the weather, it is a great opener when we meet people “lovely day today!” or “nice weather for ducks” or “there’s a chill in the air today” we love it! The weather governs the choices we make, where we go and what we do, how good, or bad our holidays are, and it is one of the reasons why so many people like foreign holidays “at least you can trust the weather there” they will say with confidence.
As a minister, I am always nervous when we decide to hold an outdoors event and insist that we have a contingency plan should it rain. I have decided that God has a sense of humour and just as we envisage a perfect event with the sun shining and a nice gentle breeze to keep us all comfortable, he sends us rain, or gale force winds, or even on one Christmas occasion, knee deep snow and plans suddenly have to change, and whatever we do somehow feels to be second best, yet memorable for very different reasons. I am thankful these days for the BBC weather forecast which I can now access online and is usually reliable, I become an avid weather watcher during the week when a weather dependent event is scheduled.
On the first weekend in August there were two very different events on the same weekend for me, a wedding on Saturday, and a service on the quay side in the picturesque village of Orford on Sunday evening. There had been months of planning for both events and all we needed was the right weather on the day, not much to ask for. I watched in horror as the weather forecaster with their usual glee announced that Saturday was going to be a horrendous day with an amber warning in place for flooding.
I love the way that storms are given nice, seemingly innocent names which make them feel somehow more friendly, this one was Anthony and was going to hit the nation on Saturday around the time of the wedding. There was a time that forecasts were famously unreliable, but not on this occasion, the guests and the bridal party arrived in torrential rain, the photographs had to be taken in the Church as the rain poured outside, but we still managed to have a lovely time together and it was a joy to share in the happy occasion.
It seems scarcely believable that the weather had improved so much by Sunday and during the early evening we made the delightful journey through the Suffolk countryside to Orford. Alright, so we had to make one detour due to flooding, but by six o’clock in the evening we were sitting out on the quay side with the brass band accompanying us as we shared in the annual quay service. It was a wonderful experience watching river crafts passing by on the river Alde and there is something good about worshipping God in a place like this. There was little chance of sunstroke, unlike at the world scout jamboree in Buan, South Korea, I can imagine the British contingent as 37,000 scouts from 158 different countries have been evacuated as a typhoon with winds of up to 78mph headed in their direction. I guess that the British contingent would have been complaining.
We need to remember that the wind and the rain, snow and hail are gifts from God and are the very gifts that give us England’s fair and pleasant land. Maybe it shouldn’t matter what the weather is like, we should perhaps always great each other with “nice weather today” and thank God for whatever he decides to send us.