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Good morning. Snow drifts on roadsides. Rubbish bins flying around in blizzards. The country coming to a standstill. I can only be talking about one thing. The Beast from the East and now Storm Emma. The Siberian winds have caused schools to close, left people stranded on motorways overnight, and have tragically resulted in fatalities. For many of us commuting to work, the weather has been something to endure. However, it’s also transformed Britain into a beautiful winter wonderland, with people making the most of it, building snowmen, having snowball fights, and one intrepid individual even trying to ski along Oxford Street. As Brits, we obsess about the weather in a way that no other country does. For us, talking about it is a national hobby, come rain or shine. In some respects, it’s an acknowledgement of the power that the elements have had on our islands for millennia, and shows our understanding that there’s little we can do to influence them. Regardless of our beliefs, we all understand that there are still many things in our lives that we can’t control ourselves, and that there are forces far bigger than us, including weather fronts. The natural world has an uncanny ability of showing us who’s boss, even when we think we’ve finally conquered it. It reminds me of a couplet written by Guru Nanak over 500 years ago. “We are all within the Divine’s command. No-one is beyond that command.” It’s the idea that we are not the masters of all that happens to us, and that there will be times when we can do little more than accept the circumstances we find ourselves in. The famous legend of King Canute sitting on the shore to show his courtiers that he couldn’t stop the tide from coming in is a good example of how we can’t always have power over our surroundings, no matter how powerful others think we are. But we are in charge of how we react. When my grandmother sadly passed away a few weeks ago, the poetic phrase that my family used over and over again was that she’d “breathed all the breaths that she had been given.” It reflected our acceptance of what had happened, that her death couldn’t have been prevented, and that we should be grateful for the long life she’d lived. In our deepest grief, we knew that we couldn’t do anything more than mourn her passing and talk about our memories of her. Life can be chaotic at times, and it may take a while for normal service to be resumed. Even in the most challenging situations, sometimes all we can really do is accept what’s happening around us, that we can’t control everything. But I believe that navigating life with both humility and purpose might just make it easier to weather any future storms, no matter where they may come from.