This afternoon I spent some quiet time in our Chapel. Normally our Chapel looks out on Lake Washington - today it looked out on a winter wonderland. It was getting dark on this shortest day of the year as I sat there, and it was quite beautiful to sit there in prayer watching it all.
After my Chapel time, I joined folks in our community room. They were watching the The Priests sing on PBS. There I was, enjoying the music and admiring our beautiful Christmas tree when .... POOF ... utter darkness! Luckily my cell phone worked really well as a flashlight in the darkness. Our generator came on, and I helped some of the Sisters find their way to the dining room. Apparently in the case of power failure, our generator provides some light - mostly in the hallways, dining room and kitchen.
I was heading to my room to get my real flashlight before dinner, when someone said I had a phone call. One of our Sisters who lives up the hill in a little hermitage type house was calling to ask if I could come and get her. It made sense since our house had some heat and light and her house had none. So I headed up to my room anyway to get my flashlight and put on my snow gear. Then I headed out in the snowy darkness up the hill to find my car.
The car that I was assigned is the only all wheel drive vehicle in the house - and I have snow tires. I parked it up in the overflow parking lot at the top of the hill in case I needed to go somewhere in an emergency. Yesterday I'd picked up someone who was coming for Christmas. The car had been clear of snow then, and tonight it had at least 6 inches that I needed to clear off. It all worked out fine, although I did have to stop a few times to shake tree branches that were heavy with snow and blocking the driveway. I got safely to her house, picked her up, dropped her off at the main house, and took my car back up to the overflow parking lot.
As I was walking carefully back down the hill through the snowy darkness, I heard music. Sweet music. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas," the music said. No kidding I said back. The music continued. It was amplified, and I was mystified. How is this possible I thought, the power is out! Then it dawned on me .... The Christmas Ships* must be sailing by our part of the shoreline this snowy evening.
I made it safely back in inside, had a nice hot bowl of soup and PB&J in the company of my sisters, and then (obviously as I am now writing this down for posterity using an electronic computing device) the power came back on.
May it stay on - they lost power here for 10 days a few years ago!
Pray for all those affected by these adverse weather conditions.
Help out when you can.
And stay safe, warm and dry.
*For those of you wondering what a "Christmas Ship" is, it's a Seattle tradition. Every night in December a ship sails on Lake Washington or Lake Union with Christmas music performers on board. They make two stops - usually near a park on the shore - and blast the concert to the shore using loud speakers. I actually went on the Christmas Ship earlier this month with a group of Sisters. It was a lot of fun!
1 comment:
Good to hear you're OK! I've heard the weather is nasty. I left for Boston on 12/13, right before the storm that hit there and the one that just went through here. Heard there's supposed to be more snow on Christmas Eve for Seattle, though.
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