THANKFUL FOR THE THUNDER

 BY STEVE DUNN

A good friend of mine, Rich Thornton, shared this brief post in his blog MORE THAN TODAY.
 

I am thankful for thunder. Not long ago I walked to lunch, walked back, and started working again in my office. In just a bit I heard thunder. It got my attention...because the windows on my car were down some to cool it off. The thunder warned me so that I could go out and put the windows up. Just in time...then the rains poured and poured. Sometimes I need to be more thankful for the warnings, the thunder, the things that get my attention that I better change, get moving, push on...or I will be sitting in a mess. There are enough messes that I cannot avoid...best to hear the thunder and act and avoid the potential messes that I can.

I grew up in western Ohio, a part of the Midwest that is sometimes called "Tornado Alley."  People there did not panic but we were mindful that a warm summer day could suddenly change into an afternoon or evening of disaster when an unexpected cold front arrived.  This was more than 40 years ago before the sophitiscated weather radar warning systems were in place and there were not as many television stations committed to weather watching and storm chasing.

You learned to listen for thunder.

Thunder was the warning that a thunderstorm was coming, and it was in the heart of thunderstorms that tornadoes appeared.

Not every thunderstorm announced a tornado.  Some just brought wind and rain.  Some brought the cooling rains that made hot summer evenings much more tolerable.  (A lot of us did not have central air to regulate our inner climate.)

But thunder was often the thing that broke us out of our reverie, captured our attention when we were not paying attention, and allowed us to be ready for the coming storm.  Being forewarned was often difference between harm and safety, damage or damage control, life or death.

Maybe in our air-conditioned, climate-controlled cocoons of the world; we need to be listening for the thunder.