Whither The Weather

I am somewhat behind my times, as Bob Cratchit once said, in that I spent the previous day with the Little Sisters Of Poverty And Pain, a group of nuns that I support in their charitable activities. I mean, there is faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity.* In any event, I missed my writing time. These things happen, but I will stick to my John Wayne dictum: "Never apologize, pilgrim."

Now the good sisters take in a number of female refugees and women escaping from abusive situations, and I teach an English as a Second Language course to assist those who are having difficulty speaking the language. Things go very well at first, then the going gets rougher. As is known, English is an easy language to speak badly; it is an extremely difficult language to speak well.

A number of queries from my "students" focussed upon what to talk about that would be acceptable when they were part of a new group. I suggested they stay away from religion or politics, the two bugbears that have wrecked havoc upon society now and in the past. Rather, I recommended that they initially stick to that safest of all topics, the weather.

"Why?" asked one class member.

"Because," I replied, "no one really knows what weather is, and when precisely it will snow, rain, or whatever. Even meteorologists stumble all the time when predicting a weather event, and hence this topic presents a wonderful opportunity to say almost anything and never annoy the person or persons you are talking to. Which, when just getting to know people, is a very Good Thing."

"One could," ventured a class member, "talk of astronomy." (I recalled that one of the group was a physicist in her native country, but was now pushing a cash register at Costco.)

"One could," I replied, "but this can get a bit awkward if the person you are discussing parsecs with believes that the world is only 6000 years old, and that people were consorting with dinosaurs. Right away you would have made an enemy. For the time being, best to stick with the weather."

At this point the astronomer slipped into her native Italian, knowing I was fluent in what was my mother tongue. "Well," she said, "You are probably right. My professor at Turin once stated, I use her words, 'that it was never wise to provoke a person not ready to be provoked.' As a topic, then, the weather will be just fine."

I commended her professor, and concluded with my own astronomical observation:

"I exist!" the man cried to the Universe.

And the Universe replied, "Well, I'm sorry, but I don't feel any sense of obligation."

Enough. Or too much.

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* First Corinthians, 13:13. More recent readings of this verse have altered "charity" to "love", mis-translating "caritas". I suspect that the focus was shifted to being charitable to Holy Mother Church, not the other way round. -- L.S.S.