Feeling a bit morose and overcome with the doldrums, my friend and I went up to Red Rock NCA Monday afternoon to welcome the thunderstorm. We really didn't feel like doing much, but we both knew we needed to get out and do something to keep our minds occupied. When there is no closure to loss, your mind goes to many places, some of them dark, and we have always wanted to be up in the mountains for a big storm.
Hoping to see a flash flood, we headed for an area with evidence of recent high water. Sure as shooting, the storm moved in quickly, sheets of rain pounding us in the face and chest, and pretty soon we were soaked. To get a better view, we headed up to the natural crest and arrived just in time for the lightning storm. We were the tallest things at the crest, and we kind of felt like it might have been a mistake, but I removed my hat and looked up at the sky and told God that I was ready if it was my day.
After that, we saw the most amazing lightning storm I have ever witnessed. The bolts crossed the sky, jumped from cloud to cloud, booming and branching rapidly as the rain would crest and wane. Some of them hit the ground around us, but despite being sad, apparently we were not negative enough to attract the wrath of the cloud. It shook and rolled and then passed on, and we stood there soaking wet and awed. I realized we had just done something that many people will never attempt.
It takes a lot of stupidity actually to stand in the lightning. However, if we'd played it safe, it would have been less worthy of the drive. By being ready to stand amidst the lightning, we were able to see what few others will. Now, often the risk is great that the lightning will hit you, hurt you, and even destroy you, but my mother taught me to feel as safe on any battlefield as in my own bed. You see, my days are known, and they will not be numbered less, and although it's not my implication to tempt fate, I knew that if it was my day there was no escaping. By the same token, if it was not my day, then nothing could hasten my end.
Most people won't stand in the lightning. They hunker down in their homes or scurry to their cars to save themselves. This means they remain alive longer, but they may not ever really live. You hear all the time that "you can't fight city hall", but you know what- I have, and I have also won. I have won against the police department, the department of homeland security, the equal opportunity employment commission, the judicial system, and every other form of GOBNet on the planet. I haven't beaten them all, but they are really nothing more than thunderstorms. They sound loud and they can hurt, but ultimately they pass away and we can't tell that the people in them ever lived. The water falls, the lightning strikes, and the thunder rolls, but it doesn't kill or hit or even hurt everything it touches, and in fact some of that is essential to life.
As a plant scientist, I know about the roll of thunderstorms in western communities. The water gives life to a myriad of organisms that sit in waterways waiting for water to arrive. They quickly grow, spawn, and die, their offspring awaiting the next storm even if it's years away. Even the lightning, as much as we hate the fires it produces, gives life. Ponderosa pines and Sequoia trees depend on fire to open their cones and let new saplings start. It's really kind of a matter of perspective.
Standing in the lightning may not be fun or wise all the time. Some people, myself included, are lightning rod kind of people. We pick fights sometimes when we should probably flee, but in doing so we get to see things other people do not. How many people do you know well who have been in courtrooms or filed a congressional inquiry? How many people do you know who have been exonerated? How many people have successfully defended themselves against a system stacked to overprotect the guilty to avoid punishing the innocent? How many times have you stood up in the rain against the lightning? It's scary, and it's dangerous, but if it is the right thing to do, you are not alone out there. Those that be with us, Elisha reminded his servant, be more than those that be with them.
It was an experience I shall not soon forget and that I shall not regret. Of course, some people close to me might have preferred I not "risk my life unnecessarily", but it's my life to use as I see fit. I have no obligations to anyone. If I'm going to be damned anyway, I'm going to be damned for who I really am and stand in the lightning, knowing that even if I get burned, the show will be spectacular.
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