I love snow.
It’s beautiful.
It just invites me to slow down and curl up next to a fire with a cup of coffee and a book.
But there’s a downside to snow. It kind of gets in the way of everyday life.
A couple of years ago we got a massive amount of snow (at least for St. Louis). The meteorologists called it a “polar vortex.” I’m still not entirely sure what that means. I do know that we got a lot of snow.
Crews were sent out to clear the streets and parking lots so that people could get out.
The challenge of clearing a parking lot, though, is that there aren’t a lot of places to put the accumulated snow.
So, at the grocery store I frequent, they simply shoveled it all to the end of an aisle. They freed up parking spaces but effectively created a “no outlet” situation.
I pulled into a row of parking spaces only to find that there were none available, and the plowed snow was blocking my way. I had to do a twenty-point turn to get back out the way I came.
Another car had followed me. She couldn’t see that the road was blocked and that there was nothing to do but turn around. She was livid at how long I was taking to get out. The whole time I was trying to correct course she was flipping me off and even rolled down her window to hurl curses at me.
I rolled my window down, too, and tried to explain that there were no parking spaces and that the snow was blocking the way but to no avail. She kept yelling about how I was wasting her time and needed to learn how to drive.
But she didn’t know what I knew. She didn’t know there was a roadblock ahead.
As I pulled forward, I saw her doing the same twenty-point turn in my rearview mirror.
I wonder how often I do that. I wonder how often I criticize others simply because I can’t see what they see. I wonder how often I’m blind to what lies ahead. I wonder how often I’ve failed to pay attention to those that have gone before me and heeded their wisdom.
Let’s make sure we have all the information before we get impatient or angry.
It may be that we don’t have the whole story.