Sunday, April 5, 2009

Theological Weather

While on vacation in Central City with Cheyenne and her husband Hank, we had a wild hailstorm. Their house got hit with hailstones that measured about 2 inches across. As several of them crashed through the skylight, I reflected that I had always thought that their house was the most safe and solid place to be. Well, it is. It is beautifully built. But that does not mean that Nature can't get freaky on us. Our only absolute safety is in God. So, we mopped up water and glass for quite a while. Hank had just come home from work and into the house when the storm hit. When he saw it starting to hail, he went outside to move his car from the driveway to the garage. Then the usually calm-natured Hank yelled, "Holy Sugar!" although sugar was not the word he used. I rushed out to see what was up. Across the street in the neighbor's yard were what looked like masses of white tennis balls, with more of them bouncing down. I am glad Hank did not get a concussion. One of those ice balls did hit his gutter and narrowly missed his head. He darted back into the house. In the northern Central City area, windshields were smashed and cars were dented. When a hailstone crashed through one woman's windshield while she was sitting in a traffic jam, she jumped out of her car and dashed away in a panic. I wonder what I would have done. Sat there in the car while the hail came down, or run off into the storm to risk getting a direct hit? Not a choice I'd like to make.

Cheyenne, still at work when I phoned and told her about it, groaned and said, "Please tell me this is a bad April Fool joke." I wished I could say that. But later she said, "Ya know, you take what comes to you when it happens. And when it happens, you deal with it."

Good philosophy, I'd say.