Thursday, June 24, 2010

Awe-Full

 

Last night's sunset. It was raining hard and I had come in earlier than usual to start watching a Netflix movie. Just as I sat down I noticed a beautiful amber color outside. I went out to check and found that the setting sun had come under the clouds and was shining through the rain.
A few hours before the rain a very large and ominous cloud, moving low and slow, almost filled the sky. It was rounded at the edges, with puffs of cloud within it, and a few hints of white light breaking through the dark gray. It so filled me with awe that I was not even tempted to go get my camera. I wanted simply to surrender to it. I thought of the many times in the Bible that a cloud is used to show God's hard-to-grasp presence.
Afterwards I began playing with the word "awesome." I presume it began as a way of describing something that had "some" awe, a bit of awe. This cloud, however, was full of awe, but "awful" has come to have a very negative meaning. Maybe "awe-full" nature.
Then this morning we had a mighty wind and just a short while ago a magnificent, hour long thunder, lightning, rain, and hail storm. God is not just in the "sound of sheer silence" as the prophet Elijah experienced the Divine.
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