Pastor's Message
                                                                                           

SPIRIT STEPS  August 2008
THE PERFECT THUNDERSTORM 

It was a perfect thunderstorm.  I sat alone in the kitchen watching the clouds as the storm approached.  Dark clouds swirled, looking menacing in the western sky as they signaled the storm’s approach.  The air was still, the calm before the storm.  Perfect.  The rumbling of thunder in the distance had been going on over the last fifteen minutes.  Today there was something soothing about the rumbling.  Maybe it was my acceptance of the inevitability of this storm.   Maybe it was that I knew that the seeds I had just finished planting would be watered. Maybe it was that everything that needed to be kept dry was covered.  I don’t know.  I do know the rumbling was soothing. 

The stillness was suddenly shattered by a bright flash of lighting, followed by a clap of thunder that shook the windows of the house. Perfect.  The trees signaled the wind as they bent before it.  Then there was the rain.  It came in sheets, driven by the wind.  Streaks of lighting were followed by deafening cracks of thunder.  More wind, more rain.  Perfect.  The storm was intense, but short lived.  It lasted for less than half an hour.  When it subsided, large puddles dotted the street and branches from the trees cluttered the yard.  A large limb from the neighbor’s tree fell victim to the storm.  The air was fresh and cool, and sunshine danced on the surface of the puddles as the dark clouds and rumbles of thunder faded into the eastern horizon. Perfect.

It has been a week since that “perfect thunderstorm” and there have been a number of thunderstorms since, but none so perfect.  As I wondered about this, it struck me that maybe there wasn’t a difference in the quality of the storms as much as in the difference of the time I took to appreciate them.  Since the “perfect one”, I have not taken the time to sit down and be with a storm as I did on that day a week ago. 

I wonder if it is not that way with all of God’s creation.  When we take the time to sit down and be with the created order, we find perfection; but most of the time we busy ourselves with other things and miss out on the perfection that surrounds us.  So often we frustrate ourselves by trying to force things into our timetable and we forget that there is a greater timetable that governs our lives.  As the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us, “there is a time for every season under the sun”.

In a number the Eastern practices of medicine as with Native American practices, healing is a matter of coming into harmony with nature.  Wholeness then is being in tune with the rhythm of nature which, when we pause long enough to appreciate it, we find that it is perfect. 

As we enter into the second half of the growing season, take some time to appreciate the perfection that surrounds you and then take a few more moments to reflect on the Creator that makes all things perfect and all things new.

May you enjoy the blessings of August.

Pastor Bob