Ice Kingdom

We got an ice storm through here yesterday. First little ice pellets, then a "wintry mix," as they call it. The windows on the east side of the house were just coated with ice, so thick that I couldn't even see out through them.

This morning when I looked out my front door, I found that my welcome mat was only somewhat visible, beneath a layer of something like a quarter inch of solid ice. And my back steps are covered with ice the way a cake is covered with frosting.

Worship services at both churches are canceled for today, due to the ice. I've heard no traffic going by outside on the gravel road since some time yesterday, not even the usual inevitable farm vehicles. I wouldn't even want to set foot outdoors this morning for anything less than an emergency.

Last time I remember services being canceled due to ice, it was twelve years ago, the first Sunday in January 1993. At that time I was interim pastor at an old German Presbyterian church on a gravel road out in the countryside of northern Illinois. I wasn't moved into the manse yet, I was staying in a bed and breakfast in a nearby town. Country roads were impassable, but we managed to make it to the service of a newly organized congregation which was meeting in the hallway of the Wil-Kleen building. A truck driver from Pennsylvania led a chaotic charismatic service, complete with speaking in tongues and altar call. Good stolid Presbyterian that I am, I just stood there by my folding chair like a fence post.

This morning I'm just going to sit around quietly, drink more coffee than I ordinarily would on a Sunday morning, and perhaps tinker with my computer. Nobody's going anywhere today.