It sounded like something enormous broke in the sky right above our house last week. What a huge and awesome thunderstorm we were enveloped in?
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Weirdly, our puppies didn't even seem frightened by the ruckus, but we girls screamed and fled...then relaxed and ran around in the rain.
While a clap of thunder sometimes sounds like a crash or a roar, it almost always sounds like the voice of God to me.
When other people hear rumbling from the sky they say God is moving the furniture, but if that's the case, then last weeks' cracks and booms surely indicated kitchen renovations because they were incredibly loud, and seemingly eternal.
I totally understand how ancient cultures worshiped the gods they heard in the thunder, as a storm seems to display such magnificent power.
These days, we choose to worship much crazier stuff... toilet paper comes to mind, but if this rumoured shortage of coffee starts to look more real, there is no knowing what sacrifices I will make to get my hands of some!
More destructively, we worship our own opinions, willing to make all kinds of sacrifices to bow down to them, including our respect of others and our tolerance for difference.
We seem quite happy to tear down those who don't share our opinions, with vicious words, sacrificing the harmony that comes from the binding power of love.
This taste of tropical weather certainly has us all looking up and looking around at the amazing natural beauty in this part of the world we are blessed to live in, but even in a storm our environment is at risk of catching on fire from lightening strikes, and our remarkable volunteers in the CFA and SES have again rushed to protect us.
I hope we can all be as vigilant at not letting the daggers of criticism injure us as a community.
Let's choose to be noticeably unusual by turning towards each other rather than shutting each other out, focusing in on understanding and respect, rather than letting the algorithms of social media services divide us, and the fear-fuelled mass media defeat us as a community.
Life will be a cold grey sea if we must all be exactly the same, let's find unity in diversity.