Any Port
August 13, 2021
Embers From the Fire
A weekly blog by Deacon Dan Wagnitz for the Quad-Parish Community
Any Port – 8/13/2021
This week has been a week of storms. Actually, it seems like July and August have been the summer of storms. I can’t recall too many nice gentle soaking rains. Early in the season it was very dry and we fell into a drought state. Now we have made up the shortfall of rain and then some, but it has come in big rains accompanied by plenty of thunder and lightning.
Yesterday was tense. After four plus inches of rain just fell a couple of days ago which already had the yard flooded, the hazy hot afternoon kicked off a series of storms that had me tuned into the weather radar. The first wave was serious enough with a confirmed tornado touching down in Pulaski – about six miles to the north. But it was the second wave that hit even closer to home. It’s ominous when the tv weather forecaster is showing the radar and explaining that the worst of this storm is three due west and heading right at you.
It got so dark that I turned the kitchen light on just to see. Our nearest neighbor is about 150 yards away, and even though it was midafternoon it rained so hard that I couldn’t make out their house. The entire yard looked like one giant puddle because the ground just couldn’t absorb the pelting. This is the kind of rain that set Noah’s boat adrift. Although the tv weather person warned of the potential for a tornado, the wind was only strong for a couple of minutes and it never reached dangerous speeds here.
In the height of the storm, I was watching out the kitchen window that faces west – the direction that the storm was coming from. It was at that point when I could only see about thirty feet out into the yard that I noticed the bumblebee clinging desperately to the window screen. It was looking wet and ruffled. There is a little overhang there and it served to protect the bee from the force of the huge pelting drops. No doubt that a direct hit would have knocked the bee to the ground where he would have had very little chance of survival.
The bee provided some distraction from my own concerns. It helps to think about others rather than stay fixated on yourself, even if that other at the moment is a bumblebee.
It was a mercy that the storm moved fast because much more water would have led to some significant flooding. As soon as the rain did slow and then stop – a true storm break – quick and decisive – the bumblebee took flight for home and I went out to see if there was any damage.
I was thinking of the prayers that I had been praying. Some would say they went unheard, but I know differently. I won’t know this side of heaven to what extent the storm was lessened but I know that it was. I was grateful that the bumblebee helped to remind me to think of others and that it had survived.
His Peace,
Deacon Dan