Storms pass

‘The best laid plan so mice and men gang aft a-gley.’ So said Robbie Burns. What he meant to say was that even a budget and a mini budget and a u-turn or two, and a sacking and another sacking, sometimes don’t quite achieve the result you wanted.

But that’s enough about politics. Suffice it to say that the pantomime season has arrived early this year.

Last night we had an amazing thunder and lightning storm lasting for a couple of hours. The lightning turned the night startling-neon, dazzling the senses so that the little cottages in my street seemed to jump as the sky lit up. The thunder, a continuous long deep rumble rose up all around, from the air, the sky, and even from the ground. I stood on the doorstep and breathed in the electric atmosphere, smelling the ozone, skin prickling as I watched the rain flowing past the house, gurgling in the gutters, splashing off the rooftops. It was wonderful. It was the perfect moment to sing “Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to Thee, how great You are, how great You are.’ and to sing it with gusto because there was no one in the street to hear it, and even if they had been there, the storm would have drowned my bellowing. I mean, singing. Exhilarating.

This morning the world was calm. The storm had passed, as all storms do, and I sang those words again, with a new awareness of His power. But quieter. I learned my lesson about singing too lustily one windy day a couple of years back when, with the beach empty, I stood by the dunes and sang with all my heart, as loud as I could. It was pretty wintery and I had the beach to myself. Before I start I always check there’s no one anywhere near and there was positively no one. Honest. I really looked. The song was ‘Blessed Assurrance’ and those of you who know it will remember that it has a full-pelt, no holds barred chorus. A rip roarer. I was well away into the third or fourth repeat of that chorus (‘THIS is my story, THIS is my song!) when I saw that Percy was watching something behind me. Yep. The beach was deserted but the dunes weren’t. An obviously alarmed couple were scurrying past, probably hoping that I wouldn’t see them. What do you do in that situation? Brazen it out? Fall silent or keep singing? I broke off and shouted a cheery “Morning!’ but they just nodded, almost falling over each other in their haste to get away. Ah, well.

When we lived in Johannesburg there were quite a few brief thunderstorms, usually at mid-day, but the lightning and the noise seemed miles away, not around us, and under us and in us, like last night’s storm. I do love a good storm. A storm of Biblical proportions, as they say.

Talking of which, in our Bible study we’re watching a series of videos delving into the Mysteries of Genesis (by Markus Lloyd) and last week we heard about The Flood. The footage of the Grand Canyon, and the filming of the volcanic eruption of Mount Saint Helen, and its effects, were amazing. Thought provoking. If you haven’t discovered Rightnowmedia yet, I do recommend it.

Anyway. No storms tonight. Even Downing Street and Parliament are settling down into something less frenetic and chaotic. Spare a thought for Liz Truss, and a prayer for her, she’s done her best and failed and that’s always a hard hard knock and this one has turned her into a figure of ridicule all over the world. Probably for the rest of her life. So do pray for her, she’s no worse than you and me, and she did her best.