Lately I've been thinking about directions. When I'm driving West on a road, like Middle Country Road for instance, it's neat to think about the term "west" in a general, worldly sense. For instance, where my car is at that exact moment, if I were able to drive due west, straight on til' morning as they say, I could be in Pennsylvania or Ohio or Colorado, etc. And the same if I were able to drive due east. We are constantly able to move east and west, but rarely up and down. Physically, we really don't go too far up or too far down, at least not as easily. We can go as high as a sky-scraper, or of course an airplane, but it doesn't involve the same amount of effort. We can laboriously climb to the top of a mountain or scuba-dive to the bottom of the ocean, but these activities are not common to everyman's everyday life. And of course at times we fall down, but as I was reminded when watching Batman Begins, "Why do we fall? To pick ourselves up."
Tonight, I watched a pair of "funnel clouds" from my backyard deck. These twister-like masses appeared in the distance, only a few miles, just over the Long Island Sound, extending out from a massive storm cloud that ballooned and marshmallowed all the way up to the sun. It was a magnificent sight to see from the vantage point of my own backyard. But, I thought about the rare tornado action that we see here on the island as a sign that even though we might get caught in a whirlwind sometimes, there is beauty and serenity and solace underneath it all. I was able to see this beautiful sight, which got me thinking; others were able to capture it on video and are now featured in the (local news); yet, if these twin twisters had been 20 miles closer to land, houses (possibly even those of some good friends) could have been seriously damaged.
We tend to encounter whirlwinds like these all the time. The key is looking underneath for that glimpse of light or way of picking ourselves back up when the dust settles and the wind dies down a bit.
Monday, August 11, 2008
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