High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Storms’

As the sun sank over the horizon, the trees gazed out across the field and chatted amiably amongst themselves, as old friends do.

“Tomorrow could bring storms with lashing winds and snow,” one said, gesturing to the bank of heavy clouds that sailed by.

“Or it could be sunny,” the youngest one chirped hopefully, “and the funny little chickadees could come and hop about our branches.”

“Maybe we’ll see the deer again, now that the hunters have gone,” mused the maple.

Eventually, the clouds blew past and the stars sparkled in the clear night sky.  And the old friends fell into silence, filled with the peace of the night and the contentment of the enduring present pleasures.

The world was like a giant movie set as I drove to work this morning.  Licorice clouds swept across a painted sky and trees danced wildly in the wind.  Sheets of rain fell and ran like rivers down the highway, streaked with the lights from my fellow travelers’ cars.

As I drove, the car’s heater comfortably warming the music-filled air, I almost felt as if I were standing still and the world was racing by.  I watched the scenes change with every arc of my windshield wipers, the sky turning apricot and gold, the mists dancing up from the hills, the clouds changing from a deep maroon to lavender, then to gold and pearl, and finally thinning almost to nothing as the sun rose over the wide Ohio River.

The ice that had covered the region yesterday was gone now.  And although the snow that had buried cities to the west of us would reach us later in the day, the morning was suddenly clear and mild, almost hinting of springtime.

I thought about the contrasts of life, about the storm roaring toward us from the west and about the political storms unfolding on the globe, about the destruction both wrought and the human tragedies that played out in their wake.  I thought about how they brought out the best and the worst in us, how they taught us not to take our moments of peace and comfort for granted and reminded us that life was both fragile and ruggedly enduring.

My phone began ringing the moment I entered my office and a steady stream of coworkers brought requests and stories to my door, little tales of sadness and of humor, of challenges and triumphs.

Over an hour passed before I glanced out my window.  But when I did, the drama of the lighting took my breath away.  The storm clouds were racing in and had turned the western sky dark as night.  But the morning sun still shone brightly in the east, illuminating all the neighborhood’s houses.  “What contrast the world gives us!” I thought.  The light and the dark, the weak and the strong, the truth and the illusion, and all of it leading us to see it as a whole and as a wholly magnificent adventure.

When I was a small child, my parents would sometimes wake me in the black of night when a thunderstorm was moving in across the bay.  “Come watch the storm,” they would say.

They would tuck me snugly between them on the sofa in the enclosed sun porch and we would watch the lightning dance toward us across the churning waves.

They laughed at the deafening thunder, snuggling closer, and exclaimed, “Oh!  Did you see that one?” when a bolt big enough to light the horizon flashed down from the clouds.

After awhile, they would carry me back to bed and tuck me back under my covers.  “Wasn’t that beautiful?” my mother would say, kissing my forehead.

And so I learned to love the power and majesty of storms.  They might be frighteningly loud and startling.  And they sometimes left great damage in their wakes.  But I felt safe, enveloped by a love so large that only my heart could understand it.

Now I am grown, and reading the news I see ferocious clouds building all around us, threatening to unleash a mega-storm upon us all.  I pray for atmospheric change, a lifting of the pressures, an unexpected change in the direction of the prevailing winds.

My mind is tempted to rush into scenarios of unimaginable loss and destruction.  But I will not feed those energies.  I focus on the immediate present, on this moment where I am safe, and warm, and dry and surrounded by music and light.  Now is the only reality.  Everything else is only a fabrication, a creation of thought.  Everything else is beyond my control.

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world,” counseled Gandhi.  “Fear not,” said another great Teacher.  So I choose to keep my mind quiet that I might touch the infinite peace beneath even the most turbulent outer displays and project only peace into the world.  And I find myself enveloped by a love so large that only my heart can understand.