FALL 2005Sondra Ball
Mickleton MM
sit here at my computer, mug of coffee at hand, Venetian blinds open to let in the summer light. The July sky is a pale and even blue. I see no clouds at all. Yet I know that the weather report has predicted thunderstorms; at any moment, this light blue sky could turn dark and stormy, full of bolts of lightning.
That would be fine with me. I love thunderstorms. I love the excitement they bring to the air, the feeling of power and wonder. I know the ancient Greeks and the ancient Norwegians saw thunderstorms as signs of angry gods. This implies that thunderstorms are our foes. I grew up with a different image of thunderstorms. My mother always told me that thunderstorms were the great cleansers and healers of nature. They restore the old and open the world up for the new. After a thunderstorm has passed, the world is cleaner and happier. The thunderstorm is our friend, and its power is born as much from love as from violence. That person is very blessed who has thunder as a friend, as a guardian.
But not all storms are thunderstorms. I have seen a tornado drop down from the skies and rip apart a house. I have lain awake through a night of howling hurricane-force winds. It is easy to respect a tornado or hurricane, but it is not easy to watch one with anything less than fear and trembling. In the tornado and the hurricane, it is easy to believe the gods are angry.
Sometimes I feel the same way about human beings. I look at the awful things we human beings do. I look at the war in Iraq (where too many people I know are fighting; and too many people I don't know are dying). I look at the U.S. Patriot Act, which is taking away too many of my freedoms. I look at families in the slums in New Jersey—or living on the streets—victims of an economic system that has no safety net for the poorest, the hungriest, and the smallest. I see this world caught up in a political and economic storm of vast proportions—no longer a mere thunderstorm, but a tornado tearing apart forests and nations, leaving children literally dead on the streets.
The forces of human rage and greed frighten me. And, just as I do not really know what I can do to control the tornado, I do not know what I can do to control these revolving human storms. But I do know this: We warn people of approaching tornadoes, and help them get out of the path of the funnels; and we go in afterwards and help them pick up their lives and start over. And sometimes, when we find death and destruction left behind, and we are overwhelmed by what we see, we simply sit with the victims and weep.
If there is nothing else we can do to change the world, we can do that much: We can, at the least, sit with the victims and weep.
Sondra Ball
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Last modified:
Monday, August 15, 2005 at 07:28 PM
