Random Reflections from My Walk of Life

I repel technology.  It's mutual, though. I think it's great and neat and helpful, sure, but I generally prefer thinking for myself.  Often that's a dangerous endeavor, one that usually leads to nothing except more and more thinking (about things like the power of God made manifest in a thunderstorm), but that can also lead to grand adventures (like getting lost and turning up for ice cream in Decatur, Indiana).  

I'm currently searching (with gritted teeth) for a reliable yet inexpensive car as a step towards freedom.  But really, I wish that owning a car wasn't necessary for my independence.  Not that I think there's anything wrong with cars or owning them--my boyfriend loves them, and I think that's great--but I just don't like relying on cars.  I wish I could live in a place where I could walk anywhere I needed to go, but not in a crowded, smelly city.  Somewhere I could appreciate creation in all its glory.  I mean, I don't live life in the fast lane--or the slow lane or even on the bike path.  I'm blazing my own trail in the woods, walking slowly, breathing deeply, taking life for all its worth in its most obscure moments--the light of the sun shining through green branches. . .to me it's the little things that make life beautiful and so worth living.

.     .     .

It was a dozen drops of hail that caught my attention, 
Then a stillness in bated breath

Until the next flash of light and its echoing boom.

The rain began its drip at first like pockets emptying of pennies,

Then picked up speed and sound and fell like rivers into canyons.

A loud crack and I refused to let him go.

They started to chatter about the latest gadget, the newest technology,

What this and that can do,

But all was white noise next to the pouring rain.

I moved to the chair by the open window and caught the breeze as it blew in--

Gusts from all directions sweeping treetops across the sky,
Collecting clouds in dustpans.

The stick in the front yard--the pitiful replacement for the dear pin oak struck by lightning twice--

Stretches and bends with the wind, powerless in the force. 

The chatter about apps is lost in the storm outside my window,

Lost in the depths of me.

The rain pools in puddles like ripples in the soul,

Waves tossing and tides pulling the heart

Until I am drowning in awe and wonder.

What Hand painted this scene, 

Poked holes in the sky and rained down tears of sorrow and of mercy

On the world? 

The world outside alights in splendor and I am struck.

I want nothing of tablets or computers or cars--right now I am alive.