Monday, December 12, 2005

Around about 8:30 tonight, shortly after sunset, a sudden gust of wind beat upon my house. Luckily it has a solid foundation - not on sand, and also is constructed from Big Bad Wolf-proof brick. It was the expected cool change. I stepped outside to experience the event. Above me, Interestingly architechtural mid level clouds benignly covered 90% of the sky. They were just hanging about, not doing much except being a backdrop to a (what's the collective term for a loose association of small scudding clouds?), well, loose collection of low scudding clouds that seemed very low, and also moving very quickly. They appeared to be following Mountain highway, heading east, but then seemed to take a left turn at Bayswater road, heading north east. Never seen this before. I got on my bike and rode around the corner to where I could get a better view. As I rule I am not a sky-watching cloud-spotter, but there are times when it can be better than whats on tv. And less predictable.
Once I caught a whiff of the ocean, which is quite impressive as my nearest beach is 30km or so sth west. A few spots of rain started to fall, so I headed home before Hughie (he's the angel in charge of rain, apparently) sent it down by the bucket full. As I arrived home, the sky was rumbling and flashing ominously. It wasn't really much of a storm here, but trees have reportedly been blown over here and there. And the temperature went from 29 to 17C in quick time. Right now it's raining, and there is some thunder, but its nothing to write home about. (although people will blog on about alsorts of stuff, hey?)
Anyway, I was thinking about something I read last night in the Jeff Lucas book How not to Pray. He was talking about the concept (as set to music by ms Midler) that God is watching us 'from a distance'. In the Lord's Prayer, it starts with 'Our Father, who art in Heaven...' which implies a place somewhere out in the distance. Lucas points out that 'Heaven' would be better translated 'Heavens' which would include the sky, as well as the air around us that we breathe (cue: all that I need is the air that I breathe...). God is as close as that! Closer! Where can we go to escape God? Nowhere! Wherever you are, there He is! Psalm 139: 7-12
And how often does God work through the wind? Look at the Valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37:9,10 (cue: dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones..), or the movement of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4. But the wind isn't always of God, see 1 Kings 19: 11-13 .

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