Saturday, December 17, 2011

the drill

Tornadoes are a real threat in Texas. Once I was eating in the cafeteria, and a tornado came up
unexpectedly. It touched down on the baseball field directly behind the cafeteria, and then it went over where we were eating, without damaging anything, only to touch down again in a nearby parking lot. I went to music class after lunch, and someone came in and whispered in the professor’s ear. “Field trip!” she said. Our entire class tromped over to the parking lot, to see that the tornado had picked up a car, turned it upside down, and placed it back down in between two cars, without a scratch to either of the cars beside it. It’s hard to imagine wind with this kind of power.

So the next year, when the announcement came over the intercom in the dorm that there was a tornado warning, I wisely followed the seasoned Texans to an interior hallway with no windows. We waited there for quite a while until the danger had passed.

The week before Christmas is not unlike a tornado. Traffic is swirling, wrapping debris is flying everywhere, whole families are picked up from normal routine and placed back down in parties and concerts and malls. Faster and faster it goes, until it feels like it could suck you out of the ground by the roots.

Yesterday I found myself pulled by the immense force of Christmas expectations, with anxiety
rising as I thought of all that needed to be done, so I found an inside room with no windows. Several times yesterday I pulled away. I picked up a book that talks about giving thanks to God in every moment, and I read for a little while when I could have been attacking the list.
An inner room of worship.

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe.” Proverbs 18:10.

2 comments:

  1. beautiful...thank you....I shall visit that inner room today too!

    ReplyDelete