The Concept

I spent most of last week by myself. My roommate was out of town, so I spent most of monday, all of tuesday, wednesday, thursday, and part of friday by myself.

Sometimes I have problems with solitude.

I was fiddling around with some music, some lyrics, feeling mostly very frustrated. I’d been feeling like I had a permanent case of writers block. Like I was choking on these words that just needed to get out.

I decided to take a shower. White noise helps me think. Driving in the car with no radio, no music, is like a fresh breeze through my mind. The sound of running water has such an effect on me. There is so much to think about nowadays, and so little time to be thinking. If you feel the same way, you should be doing whatever you can to clear the clutter. There might be something deep underneath all the mess that really needs to be resolved. There’s not a single person on this earth who doesn’t have some true, honest, beautiful words they’re hinging on, deep underneath. It just doesn’t ever get out much. This was one such situation for me.

When I got out of the shower, I immediately seized notebook and pen.

We’re so limited in our understanding of God. Everything we know about Him rests mostly upon the bible, a collection of the history of God’s people and their interactions with Him. Everything we know might probably amounts to very little in the big picture. We’re like a blind one using our hands, touching an elephant. We can’t conceive of that much majesty.

But most everything on earth reflects Him.

God is like a storm. A storm is caused by an area of high pressure coming into contact with an area of low pressure. Hysteria ensues. A storm can encompass everything from ice and hail to fire. We usually think of storms somewhere in between. Thunder and lightning and rain. But what a storm is high above our heads, is balance taking place. A tremendous imbalance in the atmosphere is what causes a storm to take place.A storm is the world trying to balance the difference.

Storms are messy. Storms have teeth and claws and can kill people. People have lost homes, landscapes have been changed, and lives forever changed by storms. Even when there is the lightest rain in Oceanside, or a windy day, it throws debris everywhere. In Oceanside, we’re not at all prepared for such events.

Yet storms are beautiful. Nothing on earth compares to the splendor of a horizon split by lightning, clouds bursting with inner light, thunder rolling across hilltops as you count the seconds to determine the distance.

The sound of rain falling soothes me, allures me. When it rains in the evening, I’ll open the window and lie down, and the rain is my lullaby. Especially in Oceanside, where such a thing is so rare, it really brings out the child in everyone when we run through the rain, or just stand outside and stare, open mouthed and wide eyed into the heavens.God is like a storm.