Hi everyone, well what a few weeks it has been! The last time I can recall such snow was when I was a small child.  Nature has a way of reminding us that though we may think that we have controlled its excesses, the next crisis is only a slip on the ice or a burst pipe away.

It should make us aware of our place in the world, in the natural order of things. We should be conscious that we are all subject to something greater than ourselves.

I hear on the radio a constant stream of people wanting to blame someone -  usually the council or the government for the snow and resultant problems, but the truth is no-one is responsible. No-one can second guess what will happen next in their lives and no-one can insure against “acts of God”, but what is an “Act of God?”  Is God responsible for people being snowed in? – on a bigger scale is God responsible for the Haitian earthquake?

In the 1790s, Voltaire wrote a brilliantly witty satire entitled “Candide” pouring scorn on the idea that God controls every small detail of our lives and of nature. He placed his hero in the actual event of the Lima earthquake of 1746 which killed thousands of people and has the hero discussing “where is God in all this?” with Dr Pangloss, Professor of “metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigologist” – of “unflinching optimism”.

For Christians of all persuasions down the years, asking “Where is God in all this?” is a natural state of affairs. Job asked the same question, and many who face tragedy and personal loss have to walk the same route that Job did – finding a hurting God in the midst of a world of pain. We are reminded that God has lost a child, that He knows the suffering of being involved with human beings.

Voltaire has his hero finding a kind of peace at the end of his book, and in a reference to finding a new Eden upon earth, has him saying that he must “go and work in the garden”.

I wish you all a warmer and more pleasant month ahead, and whilst on the subject of snow, did you know that;

The Innu people of northern Canada, Siberia and Greenland do not have dozens of names for snow, as you may have learned in school. In their languages (Innuit and Inuktitut among them) they combine several descriptive words into a single word. For example, "snow that drifts into a wave-like pattern" (eight words in English) would exist as one word in Innuit. So their "many words for snow" are really combinations of words to describe particular snow conditions (on the ground, not falling).