A bitchy east wind drove the snow into my scarf and stung my face as I walked down to the grocery store for a dozen eggs and the obligatory hour's worth of supermarket aisle Storm Sagas. I figure I didn't suffer nearly as much as my fellow exurbanites; the least I can do is listen.

The wind blows the snow into and among the piles of debris. The snow has begun to bury the small branches and twigs and is packing thick among the bigger limbs. My neighbours mostly agree: we can't do the big post-storm clean-up until the next thaw, probably not until spring Mud Season. There's just too much wood down. Right now, we'd have to wrestle the litter free of ice and snow, and that's extremely hard work.

And we're not up to it. We're all too tired; we're all having trouble sleeping, we can't remember things, we keep stopping in our tracks, like deer in headlights, if a light so much as flickers, we have inexplicable fits of crying or anger. Later, when the thaw comes, we can put together work crews and tackle it, one yard at a time, the men on chain saws, the women and children picking up. We can stock up people's wood piles; we'll get a mulcher --use the mulch for gardens, perhaps. But not now. It's not time yet.

That decision means living with the wreckage for the next six to eight weeks, though, and the mess is not sightly. Part of me itches desperately to get out and CLEAN IT UP RIGHT NOW. But that's not sensible; I know that. It was sensible to take the kids into the city; it was sensible (indeed, necessary) to go on working instead of booting my latest work crisis into the circular file and volunteering to feed the emergency workers. These were all very sensible decisions, but they hurt my pride something terrible.

Christians have a particularly deep and problematical relationship with Works. Oh yes, we know Faith matters tremendously, but (we believe in our most secret places) if we really have Faith it will come out in Works. If the Works aren't there, either we're not much at Faith, or we're being hypocritical, or we're just plain lazy and Lacking in Character, or so we think.

It's not good enough to wait till spring to clean up the mess. We should be out there martyring ourselves, suffering in the cold, proving how tough and hard-working we are, earning others' approbation and our own self-love and God's love as well, by making the clean-up at least twice as hard as it needs to be. It's the Protestant Work Ethic, and it has nothing to do with Love at all. Our Lord did not say, "O ye that are heavy laden, get a hitch in your getalong and clean up that yard RIGHT NOW." But that's what we think the Gospel says.

We have a secret commandment, and it is not the Good News. If we were really good people, our yards would be clean now. (Maybe this explains the town official who flagged down the military and insisted that they clean up his yard when they were out on emergency duties?) If we were really good people, we wouldn't have problematical marriages, debts, life-threatening illnesses, joblessness, depression, drinking problems--not even lines, warts, bald spots, or love handles. We can get downright competitive at this martyrdom business; if I don't suffer as much as the next guy, I'm clearly morally inferior. Or sometimes, in something near despair, we can only unilaterally decide that we are really good people, any negative evidence to the contrary--and ruthlessly suppress the evidence, at whatever cost to ourselves or others. Dear Lord, the energy we put into Works that are really only our efforts to look good to You, to ourselves, to others! And so much of the energy is wasted, as my neighbours and I would waste our energy, fighting the frozen tree limbs loose instead of waiting till spring, when the work becomes bearable and useful and we can actually help each other.

When we can't do Works, we say "All I can do is pray," as though that's something inadequate, a last resort--an admission of failure, really. Prayer. Yeah, sure. Dammit, if I were only better organized, if I were stronger and a better person, I could be down there with the team at the hospital kitchen, chatting happily, peeling a gazillion carrots, being part of the group --and instead I'm only dropping words that come so cheap and easy. Praying isn't real Suffering; real Suffering is being out there in minus 20-degree weather hauling 800 gallons of water to the livestock, which is what my neighbours have had to do, poor souls. God has got to look at my performance and say "Hmmph."

A wise woman put it well: "The greatest work of God on earth was not his csrpentry or his speeches; it was hanging on that cross--immobilized--unable to do anything."

Oh.

True. I guess. Yes, I can see that--the theology. I guess.

Now, can we find some way to believe it?

Because that means believing that God does love us, and not because we've somehow earned that love, but simply for our own sake. A very tough thing to swallow, with the good old puritan conscience nibbling at an earlobe and muttering gently about Duty and Responsibility. It's so much easier on the pride to pay for a thing, after all, than it is to take it as a gift. God's love most especially included.

The greatest gift is so much harder on the pride than any other. How can we ever start to accept being given outright so much more than we could ever begin to ask or imagine?

Hard on the pride. Poor pride. I have to set it down, for it weighs so much, more even than the wet frozen-in wood in my front yard. Put it down. Put it down.