The birth of a storm

(photograph: the sky form Julie’s yard 2013)

“The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.”
Epictetus

There is the announcement of “presence”–at first you begin to smell it, as it’s impending arrival hangs heavy in the air. Next comes the rumblings of distant drum beats, growing ever stronger in both frequency and intensity. All of this long before you ever see it, warnings to those in the path…seek shelter or change course…the delightfully thick scent of rain, heavy in the air accompanied by the distant rumblings of thunder all giving way to a growing tempest—the calling card, the announcement, of an impending storm. “Seek shelter / change course– or– hunker down / run like hell.”

I sometimes wish the storms of life, which often assault us with the same intensity, frequency and damaging effects, would or could send out similar calling cards—allowing us to prepare and fight or prepare for flight. And maybe sometimes they do, in some rare instances. But for the most part, these life storms just seem to pop up, like the summer afternoon storms brought about by the heating of the day— unexpectedly appearing out of what was a clear and perfect blue sky kind of day.

And just like those ship captains of long ago, we too gain a strength and a wizened reputation from the “weathering” of these storms…we gain strength, wisdom and a determined sense of perseverance from our journeys through the storms of our lives—it’s all just a matter of surviving and getting to the other side. And this speaks to both types of storms—the literal physical storm descended from the heavens, as well as for the proverbial storms sent down by Life.

Praying for blue skies today for us all.