Air Conditioning

Year 6 - Day 237: Today, I am grateful for air-conditioning. 

This is on my once a year list. I skip it some years, but this weekend as the temperatures heat up again to the nineties... I find I am done with summer. I long for the crisp evenings of autumn and we had a little teaser the other night. 

The muggy feeling is thick. The kind where you stick to your seat and the heat is rising in tomorrows forecast. In my heart, I know that in winter I will long for these hot days, but today, I am done with summer. 

Like the Israelites in the desert years, I want comfort and what I perceive to be safety. Like them, I might jump on the complain train if it goes by. I might even start it heading down the track. I try not to be that person, but some days... I am. 

Here is one of my favorite passages from "The Desert Years". Moses is frustrated with the people who after crossing the Red Sea on dry land, watching the Egyptian Army drown and being fed manna from heaven... they find reason to complain. They want meat. Moses's response to God is priceless. 

And Moses said to the Lord, “Why are you treating me, your servant, so harshly? Have mercy on me! What did I do to deserve the burden of all these people? 12 Did I give birth to them? Did I bring them into the world? Why did you tell me to carry them in my arms like a mother carries a nursing baby? How can I carry them to the land you swore to give their ancestors? 13 Where am I supposed to get meat for all these people? They keep whining to me, saying, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ -Numbers 11:11-13 

"Did I give birth to them?" In other words, "They are your whining, complaining children. Not mine!" That Moses has a close enough relationship with God to speak to him that way is priceless; he isn't struck dead. 

I should be grateful for the extended summer, that the furnace isn't necessary and the grass is still green. 

Today, I am grateful for air-conditioning.