I don’t usually watch the weather on TV. If I want to know what is headed my way, I check the weather app on my phone or I look up one of the local TV stations websites to see what is forecasted. But this past weekend, as I visited my parents at their house, we watched the beginning of the news to catch the weather report.
It is winter in South Dakota and so high temps and bright sunshine aren’t always in the forecast. Over Thanksgiving weekend, we had snow, rain, sleet, and the typical gusty wind on the prairie. Yet when the news announced the weather, they told us to brace for unpleasant weather. That ordinarily wouldn’t have seemed so striking, but for some reason, that word unpleasant struck a chord.
Already, before the weather has even hit, they are telling me how I ought to feel about it.
In the Midwest, we know what winter is like. It is expected that there will be plenty of cold, snow, and wind. Every single year this happens. Yet it is interesting to me that when it does come, we are told it will be unpleasant.
This isn’t a critique of one news station using one word that I don’t like. Rather, it is a critique of our general attitude toward something that is quite natural. When I am told it will be unpleasant, that is what I begin to expect. But unpleasant isn’t really a forecast, it is a disposition. It is a feeling toward the weather, which is in itself quite neutral. In all reality, weather isn’t bad or good. It simply is. And I want to try to just receive it, preparing when necessary but always beginning from the realization that everything is a gift.
Photo by Sapan Patel on Unsplash
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