Rikki and the Tornado

It was Tuesday evening in the Cow County Sheriff’s Office, and the newest deputy had just arrived for his shift.  It had been storming all afternoon, but the latest thunderstorm had just finished passing over and I hadn’t even got wet coming in.  I put down my hat on the folding table that doubled as my desk (the sheriff promised to get me a real desk real soon), grabbed a jelly donut and a cup of java, and settled in with the local newspaper.  The Cow County High School Bovines were having a banner baseball year – might even make it to district playoffs. 

Just then the Sheriff burst into the room.  I quickly pulled my feet off the table, wishing I’d heard him coming.  For once, he didn’t seem to notice.  “Mrs. Grayson says Rikki is missing,” he said.  “You get out there and take care of it.  Get one of the other deputies to ride along.  It may get ugly.” 

If the Sheriff thought anything having to do with Rikki Grayson was ugly, well, he must never have met her.  Although I can’t say how he might’ve missed her in a town as small as Doggerel.  I can’t say we were friends, exactly, but we had been in high school together back before I went off for my year of college in the city.  Mason City Community College, certificate of proficiency in General Law Enforcement with a K-9 specialty endorsement.

“Wipe that moon pie look off your face and get moving!” he added.  “And I was talking about the weather.  Bad line of storms off to the north and west.  Possibility of a tornado.  Go!”

“Sorry, Sir,” I responded as I hopped up and spilled coffee all over my desk-table.  The Sheriff watched impatiently as I mopped up part of the spill with my napkin.  No time to waste, I thought.  I tossed the dripping napkin into the trash can, told the deputy who thought he was going off duty that he couldn’t yet, and pulled him along as I dashed out.

I dashed back in, grabbed my hat, and left for the second time.  The sheriff hadn’t moved.  No time for conversation, though.  In a matter minutes we were racing out to the Grayson farm, siren wailing.  I love driving the squad car.

Old Mrs. Grayson stood on the porch, all lit up in the brilliant rays of the setting sun. The sky was orange in the southwest, but it was cloudy and dark from northwest around to northeast.  Ominous sounds of thunder rolled in from over the northwestern horizon.  Mrs. Grayson wrung her hands.

 “Now, now, Mrs. Grayson.  Take a deep breath.  When did you last see Rikki?” I asked her. 

“Well, the last time I saw her was about an hour and a half ago as she headed into my granddaughter’s bedroom to hide from the thunderstorm,” she replied.

“Isn’t Rikki your granddaughter?” I asked.

“Of course.”  The hand wringing stopped and she looked at me strangely.  Suddenly, despite my law enforcement certificate and the shiny silver deputy badge on my shirt, I felt as if I were not the one in charge.  In fact, I felt almost like I was being reprimanded.  It was a feeling I knew well.  I’d had to repeat Mrs. Grayson’s Home Ec class at Cow County High twice.  It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried.  On the other hand, I never did understand why I needed to know how to sew, anyway.

Returning to the moment, I continued the investigation.  “Then what happened?”  My interrogation techniques were simple but effective.

“Well, apparently she jumped through the open window and took off running across the pasture.”  What odd behavior!  This case was really beginning to intrigue me.

“Why did Rikki jump through the window instead of using the door?” I queried, slyly.

“She often does that,” Mrs. Grayson answered. 

“Really?”  I was testing the accuracy of her recollection.

“She doesn’t care about proprieties like doors and windows.  Dogs just go wherever they want, however they can, don’t they?”

“Of course,” I muttered.  Dog?  It was beginning to dawn on me that I may have had the wrong idea about what was going on.  “I have an endorsement in K-9 operations, you know.”  She said nothing, but looked at me in exactly the same way the sheriff had when I’d spilled the coffee.  It was eerie.

Over the next few minutes Mrs. Grayson explained to me that her little black and white dog had run away during the last thunderstorm.  Rikki was a 10 year old mutt who was mostly retriever, collie, and Pekinese.  Mrs. Grayson told me she had always been afraid of thunder and lightning.  “Of course, my dog sensed that about me,” Mrs. Grayson said.  “That may be why she was afraid, too.”

“Usually she just hid under the bed when the weather got bad,” she added.  The hand wringing was back.  “This time was different.” 

About that time Mrs. Grayson’s granddaughter Rikki came out to join us.  I stood up straight, sucked in my belly, put on my most professional expression and listened with extreme intensity to Mrs. Grayson’s description of the events leading up to the disappearance. 

At least, that was what I intended to do. “Are you okay?” Rikki asked me.  “You don’t look so good.”

“Of course,” I replied with a wave of the hand.  I exhaled, sadly gave up on trying to impress Rikki, and asked Mrs. Grayson to go on.

It seems Rikki had accidentally left the window open in her bedroom.  Hiding under the bed, Rikki noticed the open window.  Before she could crawl out and close it, the little black and white dog had leapt out and was running across the pasture ahead of the cows. 

“I’ve always been afraid of cows,” Rikki admitted.  “I guess Rikki is, too.”  I looked at Rikki with wonder and paused to ponder the remarkable way the universe can work sometimes.

“About that time,” Rikki continued, “Granny called out for Rikki.  I told her she’s gone out the window.”

She told me that the earlier thunderstorm had been short but particularly severe.  There had been gusting wind that had pulled a few shingle off the roof, and some hail.  But it was the reports they’d been hearing about a tornado that got them so very concerned about the dog. 

On the way over I had heard the radio report about thunderstorms spawning a tornado over in Potato County, a few miles west of the Grayson farm.  The Potato Tornado, they called it.  It had been moving fairly rapidly to the northeast.

Apparently when Rikki left she had been headed west for Potato County.  But when the hail started she had turned the car around and come back.  The dog, on the other hand, had run off to the north.  Which at this point was even worse.

Granny Grayson was of the opinion that the twister was going to zero in on her little dog like it was a trailer park.  Her fears were beginning to affect her granddaughter. 

“I hope she don’t get twistered up,” Rikki Grayson worried.  “If a twister was to pick her up, I don’t know how Rikki would do with that.”

“She’d bark like the devil ,” Granny Grayson added.  They both laughed.  Then they both wept. 

“Oh, Rikki, what are we ever going to do with you if you don’t come back?” Rikki cried out to her missing little dog. 

“Not likely to do anything with her if she ain’t back,” Granny Grayson observed.  Then they wailed.

What was needed was less wailing and more action.  With a comforting Pat for grandmother and granddaughter, I strode out to the squad car on my way to find the missing canine.  My partner Pat stayed behind to comfort them.  He’s better at that sort of thing than me.

I started the car and gently eased up on the clutch.  The vehicle spurted forward, bounced over roots and ruts, and found the highway northbound.  Flashing lights pierced the twilight and the sound of the siren clashed with distant thunder.  I was on a mission to save Rikki and it was exciting.

Ten minutes later the siren was beginning to give me a headache.  I popped an Advil, cut off the siren and flashing lights, and turned on the radio.  My favorite station, KDOG out of Mankato, used to play a nice selection of swing and country on Tuesday evenings.  It was worth a good listen even with all the static. 

The orange glow had faded to a dim line along the horizon in the southwest.  The rain and hail came and went.  Ahead was only blackness.

Mile after mile raced by, with no sign of Rikki the dog.  I was astonished at the amazing speed of that mutt!  ‘I should have caught up to her by now!’ I thought. 

The darkness became nearly absolute - only the headlights and the glow from the dashboard lights.   Then, I seen it!  Up there, up ahead, was a cloud of darkness darker than the dark dark night sky around it.  It was a roiling mass of darkness reaching from sky down to earth, a sinister shadow slithering across the countryside. 

I stopped the car and got out.  Wiping driving rain from my eyes, I stared into the darkness and listened to the roar, like a freight train far off.  It was the Potato Tornado, gone from over west in Potato County to up in the north of Cow County up toward the Minnesota border!

I got back in my car and began to sweat.  Or maybe it was just the rain dripping in my eyes.  But I began to get queasy.  Hadn’t figured on this turn of events.  But I started off up the highway, anyway.  I had a duty to do.  Rikki was depending on me.  And to tell the truth, I had been thinking about asking her to the Founders Day dance next weekend.  So I had to find her dog.

Five minutes later the roaring swirling mass of darkening darkness was directly in front of me, dancing weirdly, rising from the road ahead up into the sky, swaying slowly, erratically, hesitantly to and fro, sliding from left to right.  The volume was deafening.  I turned down the radio.  The tornado was loud, too.

I heard one time about a tornado that picked up a cow and put it down in the top of a tree.  Weird things, tornados.  Who knows why they do what they do?  I used to wonder how that cow got down outta that tree.  But I reasoned – if a tornado could do that with a cow, why not with a dog?  I spotted a large tree in the middle of an open field to my right, so I stopped the car.  I jumped out, hopped over a ditch full of stormwater, stepped through some barbed wire, and started toward it.

The tornado was getting closer and louder with each passing second.  I began to notice things flying past me in the air.  They were birds, mostly.  The wind was getting stronger, buffeting me, whipping wildlyin my ears and through my hair… That was when I realized my hat had taken flight, too.  The sheriff was gonna be pissed. 

As I got closer to the tree, a sense of dread began to rise up from the depths of my gut into my stomach and throat.  I nearly had a panic attack, but I fought it down.  All those years of counseling with the school psychologist and I still hadn’t overcome the old fears completely.  But even in the face of imminent disaster I was still functioning, and that was pretty good.  There had been a time when I would have been paralyzed by that old fear of falling cows.  But I was no scared kid any more.  I was a lawman with a duty to do.  I clenched my teeth and strode purposefully on. 

‘Besides,’ I kept telling myself, ‘it couldn’t happen twice.’  Could it? 

I ran to the tree and jumped onto the lower branches of that big oak.  Things began falling from the sky.  More hail.  And some of the upper branches.  I think there was a squirrel in there, too, which kind of freaked me out until I remembered that squirrels are a lot smaller than cows. 

I climbed through the onslaught.  There was a terrible ripping sound… was the massive tornado literally ripping apart the sky?  No, it was my pants.  Those uniform pants were not designed for climbing trees, I can tell you.

But a split pair of trousers wasn’t important at that moment.  The tornado was bearing down on us, that is, on me and… on me and… Was that a yelping sound I heard up above?  Barking, maybe?  Was Rikki waiting for me in the top of this tree just as I knew she would be? 

Of course not.  That would just be silly.  The yelping and barking was coming from down below!  There on the ground was Rikki the dog, front paws on the trunk, barking her head off as if to say, “What in the world are you doing up a tree in a tornado?  Get yourself down here right now and let’s get out of here!”  She had a point.  I jumped from the tree and hit the ground running.  Then I got up from the mud and started running again.  Rikki and I raced for the car as the tornado exploded that big oak behind us.  We went through the barbed wire (ouch!), leapt over the ditch together, and stopped. 

The car, of course, was destroyed.  A cow had fallen on it. 

Mercifully, the cow was no longer with us. 

The Potato Tornado was reeling off to the east.  The hail stopped.  A few stars were visible in the south.  I pulled a Slim Jim from my pocket and decided the dog had earned her share.  I broke it and gave half to Rikki.  Then I realized I didn’t want any so I tossed my half into the ditch.  I’d had a nice burger basket at the Doggerel Diner before coming on duty.  We started the long long – did I say it was long? – walk home.

It was nearly dawn when we trudged up the road toward the Grayson farmhouse.  I hollered out, and Granny came out onto the porch.  She was overjoyed to see her little dog again.  They hugged and yelped and danced around and licked each other with delight. 

A minute later Rikki, wakened from her troubled slumber, stumbled out of the house, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and shrieked with happiness.  Those two sure pitch a fit when they get worked up.

We went inside, and Granny made some coffee.  She served it up with some jelly donuts and Slim Jims, which suited me fine.  For the last several miles of the long journey home I had regretted tossing away that meat stick.

I told them the story of how I had tracked the tornado, rescued the little dog, and fended off the falling squirrels and cows.  With tears of gratitude, Granny kissed my cheek.  Her granddaughter looked at me in a different sort of way and kissed the other cheek.  The dog licked Slim Jim grease and frosting off my face.  I must say I enjoyed the attention.

After I ate the last jelly donut, we woke Pat and sent him on his way back to town.  He whined a little bit about having to walk, but what could he say?  I couldn’t help it if the car had been in the path of a falling Guernsey and he had to be at work in an hour.

“Let me mend those trousers for you,” Granny Grayson offered, kindly.  She knew I never was any good at sewing.

I was exhausted, but the whole experience had invigorated me.  Or maybe it was the sugar in the jelly donuts.  Anyway, in a flash of inspiration I realized the moment had come.  Then and there, I asked Rikki if I could take her to the Founders Day dance.  She agreed, of course, with a wag of her tail.  She had been fond of me ever since I gave her that half of a Slim Jim.

The best thing was, Rikki Grayson agreed to go with us, as a sort of chaperone.  Not that we needed one, after all we’d been through together. 

I certainly hope the weather is nice for the dance next weekend.  And it also might be nice if there are no bovines in the vicinity.

#          #          #

A Simple Statement of Faith, Revised

This is a revision to a previous post that unfortunately was misunderstood by some readers as a dogmatic proclamation.  I respect the integrity and freedom of belief of all Gryphem readers, and would never be so audacious as to tell you what you must believe, especially in the realm of personal spirituality.

The comments that follow have been inspired by a new realization, a “eureka moment” in my personal spiritual experience.  More about that later.  First, some background to give context.

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I was raised in a fundamentalist denomination in which I alternately heard two very different explanations of how and why we believed as we did. 

The first rationale for our particular belief system, simply put, went something like this.  You cannot prove God.  God demands that we accept him by faith.  We are required by God to accept on faith that the Bible is his inspired word, authoritative in all things, and is to be interpreted literally (which really meant interpreted according to the tenets of fundamentalism).  No proof is required, just blind faith.

The second rationale is this.  Christianity is a religion based in historical events.  The events of the Bible, and in particular the life of Jesus, are provable occurrences with objective reality.  We can know that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected.  These events, while not rising to the level of proof, are extremely strong “scientific” evidence for the validity of our belief system.  Faith is still required, but only as an acceptance of the historical record (the literally-interpreted Bible) and as a bridge from that historical reality to personal acceptance.

Ironically, no one ever seemed to notice the contradiction between these two common rationales.

When I became an adult, I left that church.  I was tired of the contradictions and the demands that I must believe just as “they” told me to believe.  I became an agnostic for many years.  I was never an atheist, for I always believed in God.  I simply could not imagine that those dogmatic (and often judgmental) people in the pews were portraying him accurately.  I began to find what religious experiences I found in the beauty of nature, in uplifting music, in the faces of children… not in the church or even the Bible. 

The irony of the matter is this.  During my agnostic years, my prayer life began to grow.  From my earliest memories, I had prayed, and I did not stop when I walked away from the fundamentalist church.  Freed from those demands and damnations, I voiced my questions to God himself. 

Over time, I began to learn to listen to his answers.  I learned that God was not offended by my questions.  I discovered that he did indeed want me to use my intellect.  Faith as I came to understand it  was not opposed to reason; faith in its rightful role augments reason.   I concluded that God was not offended when I stayed away from the church building, that he wanted me to appreciate the wonders of the world he made.  I came to understand that God, too, appreciated the highest forms of human accomplishment.  Finally I learned, mostly by listening, that God does not want my praise; he wants to share life with me.  It’s not about laws or worship services or even creeds.  It’s really all about a relationship.

The proof of my religious conviction is not blind obedience free of critical thinking.  Neither is it historically incontestable.  The proof of my religious conviction is not found in bible, or church, or historical event, but in the ongoing conversations I have daily with God.  To be sure, bible and church and historical understandings sometimes enlighten my walk with God.  But the root of my religious experience is a relationship.  As Jesus himself said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

After 20 years or so, I returned to the church because of a congregation of Lutheran people of God who accepted me with all my questions and residual anger, and loved me anyway.  They showed me how God was present in their fellowship and invited me to join them.  They made no demands; they just offered me friendship and love.  Once I realized they were sincere, it was not a difficult decision to join them.  I came back.

Now, to return  to that “eureka moment.”  A few years ago I watched a fascinating dramatization of events surrounding the fictitious discovery of the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth.  Such a discovery would, if true, disprove the physical resurrection of Jesus, one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith.  I watched intrigued, expecting to be offended by what I supposed would be the anti-Christian conclusion.  In fact, I was not offended.  Against all expectations, I found myself forever impressed by the response of one particular priest.  Confronted with facts that seemed to disprove the foundation of his faith, he smiled.  He did not choose to argue the validity of the archeological discovery, or the scriptural record.  Instead, caring but unthreatened, he replied, “I know God exists, for I spoke with him this morning.”  That’s all.  That was all he needed. 

I don’t think I realized it at the time, but the faithful response of that man changed me. 

For reasons unknown, all this returned to my mind a few months ago.  I began to think about what my response would have been if I had stood in the place of that faithful priest.  What would I have done when confronted with irrefutable proof that my beliefs were in error?  Would I argue?  Refuse to listen?  Try desperately to adapt my beliefs?  Abandon my faith altogether?

My previous post was a response to that question which I had posed to myself.  Here’s what I wrote back in May.

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I am a believer in the revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth.  I have experienced the presence of God through Christ.  I talk to God daily.  I am a Christian living in communion with God by his grace.

Do I believe in the resurrection?  Yes.  Would I stop believing in the God of Christianity if it were somehow proven that Jesus did not rise from the dead?  No.

Do I believe in the virgin birth?  Yes.  Would I stop believing in the God of Christianity if it were somehow proven that Jesus was not born of a virgin?  No.

I am a Christian because I have met God through Christ.  Through scripture, through the Church, through people who Love, and most of all through prayer, I have met and know God. 

He speaks, and I listen.  I speak, and He listens.  He has known me and now I know him.  He has loved me and now I love him.  I can no more stop believing in God than I can stop believing in myself.

I am grateful and blessed. 

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Thanks for letting me clarify. 

Peace be with you.

Gryphem

A Lesson from the Fryelands

A post adapted from a letter to my son and my daughter.

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Do you remember long ago when you were just children, when I worked (too briefly) for the Sky Valley News in Monroe?  I am sure you do.  I even talked about it with one of you a couple of weeks ago, as we were driving through the town.  We had some interesting experiences when I had that job, didn’t we?  I remember it was because of that position as a reporter that we got to ride in a blimp once.  That was a marvel, and an experience to remember for a lifetime, wasn’t it?

One story I worked on in Monroe was not as pleasant, though… and today, all these years later, it has returned to me.  The story I am remembering frustrated me then and, if I allow myself to think too long about it, bothers me to this day.  It was a story I researched and wrote about a proposal to develop the area west of Monroe known as the “Fryelands”…

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The Fryelands was an area of farms and pasture.  Lying in the flood plain of the Skykomish River, it was literally some of the most fertile farm and pasture land in the state, and maybe the nation.

It was also in a prime location for development.  The Fryelands was an open area with few existing buildings.  It was adjacent to a U.S. highway that was a main route across the mountains, connecting the eastern and western parts of the state.  It was near the conveniences of a small town, yet rural and beautiful, as was the entire Sky Valley.  With a new connector road opening to provide easy access to the big city, the Fryelands area was nothing less than the most desirable land for development in the entire Puget Sound area.

The story was whether the town of Monroe was going to allow developers to buy up all that beautiful open land between the hills, beside the river, and build houses and streets and stores all over it.

Despite my baggage growing up in Central Florida during the years when Disney transformed it from peaceful backwater into a bustling economic machine – a transformation that was not for the better, I assure you – I was determined to be objective in my research and writing.  Whether I accomplished journalistic objectivity you can judge by reading the article.  Regardless, by the time the article was published my personal opinion was strong and entirely on one side of the controversy.  I knew then, and affirm now, that developing the Fryelands was a massive mistake, born of ignorance (or maybe just naivety) and greed.   It marked the beginning of a decline of beauty, small town charm, and quality of life in the once-bucolic town of Monroe.

Just as my hometown in Central Florida succumbed to avarice and allowed itself to be changed into a tourist destination, so Monroe, Washington sold its soul for economic growth and “progress.”  The city gave its approval, and the Fryelands were indeed developed.  Where once grass and wildflowers grew thick in the damp peat, cattle thrived, and crops grew tall, subdivisions full of split-level houses sprouted.  The fertile flood plains became a flood-prone residential neighborhood. 

All this has come back to my mind as an echo in a most unexpected place.

I had been doing some reading on line, in particular a theological essay by Athanasius discovered by virtue of the fact that the introduction had been written by C.S. Lewis, whom I am studying.  When I finished that intriguing exposition I noticed a different article on the same site.  Because I have long had an interest in how our modern American society has chosen to structure our common geographic spaces, I followed the link to an article by Eric Jacobsen in ‘The City.’  I copy the first two sentences here: 

“Driving from Seattle to Steven’s Pass along Highway 2 takes you right through a small city called Monroe. Nestled near the base of the Cascade Mountains and skirting the meandering path of the Skykomish River, this town of 16,000 could very well be a compact oasis of civilization to rival anything one would find in Switzerland or in the Lake District of England.”

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  It sounds like the Monroe I remember, the one I tried, in my own small way, to preserve over 20 years ago as a cub reporter.  But I owe you a fair warning: Do not be tempted to find joy in this tricky travelogue with theological overtones.  It only sounds wonderful for a moment.  Mr. Jacobsen continued:

“But Monroe is nothing of the sort. It is an ugly collection of strip malls, oversized signs, and utility wires. In short, it is pretty much indistinguishable from most places you are likely to see when driving from one destination to another in this country.”

That kind of hurt, unexpected as it was.  The author had drawn me back to remember the Monroe that was, and suddenly thrust in my face the Monroe that has become.  It was blunt… but not untrue.

In the interest of providing context for these remarks, here is a portion of the author’s next paragraph:

“We’ve come to expect this kind of baseline ugliness in our small towns… this regrettable condition may very well be connected to two valuable words that have virtually dropped out of our national lexicon in the past few generations.  The words ‘civic’ and ‘commons’ represent important aspects of our shared life that have been badly obscured…”

He goes on to explain with clarity and insight how we have mismanaged our public spaces, to suggest how we might do better, and to give theological significance to the issue.

The fact that Monroe, Washington has become so bad that Mr. Jacobsen chose it to illustrate his point appalls me on one level, but I admit that it does affirm me on another.  I feel a tiny bit of satisfaction that I had sufficient insight to oppose the Fryelands development all those years ago.  Today the error is all too easy to see, but then many otherwise intelligent people did not perceive the danger.  I am glad that I was able to voice an opinion in opposition to the development, in conversation if not in print, back when there was still a chance to prevent some of the damage. 

But following quickly after that satisfaction comes only sadness, a sadness much more powerful than whatever smug pride I felt in being proven correct.  I take little comfort in having been right because my opinion, however correct it may have been, apparently made no difference in the life of the town of Monroe, and the path of development it chose to follow.  If I, with a public pulpit in which to make my voice heard, did not affect the outcome, then what difference did it make that I was there at all? 

Of course, I knew long before reading this article how that whole Fryelands thing had turned out.  But the use of Monroe as an example sufficiently horrific to demonstrate the moral deficiency inherent in that civic decision… in a feature in a Christian publication halfway across the country over twenty years later… it served to emphasize to me the enormity of what we lost back in the ‘90s in the Sky River Valley.

Should I have abandoned objectivity and written a strongly worded opinion piece against the development?  Would it have mattered? 

To be sure, the development of the Fryelands was not the sole cause of the intense development of Monroe.  It was only one of many such poor decisions by which a pastoral paradise became a commercial wasteland with a pretty backdrop.  (There still are the unspoiled Cascade Mountains in the distance, thank God!)  Nevertheless, I believe that the Fryelands decision was a historic point for the Sky Valley, a point at which the rush to develop and commercialize the land could have been stopped, or at least moderated.  But it wasn’t.   

Perhaps the Fryelands development saga is simply symptomatic.  Could anyone have stopped the profit-driven train of development that was rolling irresistibly toward Monroe?  I don’t know.  But I wish I had tried harder.  Even today I am a little bit nauseated at the irony of a nature group meeting at Fryelands Elementary School, or the dark humor of a McDonalds restaurant on Fryelands Boulevard.

I recommend Mr. Jacobsen’s article to you, available at www.civitate.org/2011/09/redeeming-civic-life-in-the-commons.  But whether or not you read it, you should realize these things about decisions you and those around you might make today:

·         However secular they may seem, decisions are likely to have ethical consequences.

·         However desirable a given decision may seem to you, be careful.  If you don’t think it through all the way, you may not recognize the loss that could come to you unexpected.  You may not be able to bear the loss you didn’t anticipate.  In every decision, be sure you consider collateral damage and unintended consequences.

·         However much you want to stay out of a conflict, you may someday regret not standing up sooner or speaking with a louder voice in support of what you know to be RIGHT.

To quote Mr. Jacobsen once more, “…civic health is what towns like Monroe need to be the healthful and redemptive places that God desires us to inhabit.” 

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Here’s what I hope you will take with you from this reminiscence:

Ethical understanding and moral courage, lacking in civic leaders and some reporters in Monroe, Washington in the early 1990s, are essential for you and me if we are to make a positive difference to this world we share, and if we are to advance the Kingdom of God in our little part of it.

Now go do the right thing.  I love you.

- Dad (Gryphem)

Magic of the Equinox

The Magic of the Equinox... or Go Stand an Egg

A Post in Five Short Parts:

·         The Equinox Phenomenon

   ·         How I Discovered It

      ·         Naysayers

         ·         Real Magic

            ·         A Useful Conclusion

Those of you who have never heard of this particular phenomenon of the equinox will want to read carefully.  I’m about to tell you about something truly magical.  Not an illusion.  Real Magic.

Several years ago on a sunny morning in March, I walked into the teachers’ lounge of the school where I taught.  The Librarian, for whom I had a great deal of intellectual respect, had just finished standing an egg on its end.  And there it stood.  “That’s odd,” I thought… so I asked about it.  She told me that an ordinary chicken egg (and presumably any other similarly-shaped egg) will stand on end on only two days each year: the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. 

For those of you who haven’t studied astronomy for a while, the equinox is a particular point (actually two points) in Earth’s revolution around the sun.  At the equinox, the rotational axis of the planet is tangential to the sun.  In other words, on the day of the equinox Earth’s axis does not point either toward or away from the sun.  This means the sun at noon appears to be directly over Earth’s equator, and day and night are of equal duration all over the planet.  This happens only twice each year, on March 21 and September 21 (give or take a day due to the irregularities of the calendar).  The vernal equinox is also known as the first day of spring, and the autumnal equinox is the first day of autumn.

Now, back to that sunny morning at school.  I thought my friend the Librarian was joking around with me.  After all, I’ve fallen victim to more than my share of practical jokes.  So I laughed.  She smiled knowingly and told me she was serious.  Rolling my eyes, I sat down at the table and picked up one of the several eggs she had brought.  In a matter of 20 or 30 seconds, I had it standing on end.  “Easy,” I told her.  “I could do this anytime, so stop pulling my leg.”  Again she smiled.

A week or so later I ran into her again.  “Have you tried standing any eggs lately?” she asked sweetly.  “No,” I responded.  I knew what she was referring to, and decided to slam-dunk her silly game once and for all.  Once more, I sat down at the same table with an egg and attempted to stand it on end.  Though I tried for five full minutes, I could not do it.  Reluctantly at first, I began to believe in the Magic.

Over the following years, I have stood eggs on end at nearly every equinox.  Several times I have tried to do the same on other days of the year.  Those attempts have almost always ended in failure, although on one or two non-equinoctial occasions I have, with great difficulty, stood an egg.  On the equinox, though, the ease with which an egg will stand up and salute is astounding.  Within a few minutes I am usually able to stand three, four, or five eggs on end.  And there they will stand, if not disturbed, for as much as a day or two, before the equinoctial magic fades and they fall over, one at a time.

Some of you reading this are shaking your heads about now.  “That Gryphem…” you’re thinking, “He really is gullible.”  That’s okay.  Maybe you’ve searched the internet and found that nearly every self-professed scientist commenting on the subject says the egg-standing phenomenon is a myth.  That’s okay, too.  I know what they say, and I know what I have seen and done.  So here’s a short sidebar about science.

When I was in middle school I was taught that the proper way to employ the scientific method is to begin with an open mind.  The scientist asks a question, observes, formulates a hypothesis, designs and conducts experiments, and draws conclusions.  That’s how this observer, once skeptical, came to believe in the phenomenon of eggs on the equinox.  Sadly, most of what I have heard from scientists about this phenomenon has been dogmatic, not scientific.  Most flatly deny that it happens at all.  In my humble opinion, most do this for one simple reason: they do not understand it.  Denial of the incomprehensible is a psychologically valid human reaction.  This egg-equinox thing is threatening to some people because there is no known reason that it should happen. 

Let me say that again.  No one has ever convincingly explained why an egg will stand easily on these two days of the year and not on others.  Those who consider science to be a body of knowledge rather than a method for gaining knowledge are threatened by this.  They lack an explanation of cause and effect, so they deny the entire phenomenon.

Many scientists have been condescending about this whole subject, but a few have made a real attempt to investigate and learn.  The fairest treatment I have found among skeptics was from a scientist who demonstrated (complete with photos) that he could stand eggs on end even on days far removed from an equinox.  I do not doubt him.  What was missing from his explanation was the degree of difficulty on the equinox as opposed to other times of year.  I once saw it snow in September… but that doesn’t mean that snowfall is equally common in every month.  A snowfall in September does not change the fact that snow is far more likely in January. 

But enough of this stuff about scientists.  This is supposed to be about Magic.  Here’s the bottom line.  No one can explain why the eggs stand on the equinox, but they do.  There is magic in that.

Some claim that magic is only science that hasn’t been explained yet, and I would not necessarily disagree.  But magic is more than that, too.

Someday, a clever, open-minded scientist may discover why the eggs will stand on the equinox.  The good news on that day, from my perspective, will be this:  It will still be Magic!  Magic, whether completely obscure or whether explained in scientific terms, consists not only of a phenomenon, but also of an effect on the observer.  The mysterious nature of some experiences may inspire us to think in magical terms.  But there is more to Magic than that.  Some experiences that are quite well understood are nevertheless magical because they invoke in us a certain amazed response.  Beyond mere reason, they inspire us.  Magic may consist in the mysterious unknown cause (or effect) of an event, or in the awe we feel when that event occurs in our presence.

Have you ever stood in a field late in the day, facing west, and watched the sky evolve toward sunset?  Strands of pink begin to appear across the blue… then patches of fuchsia form high on the right , while an indescribably deep golden yellow takes shape low on the left… and the glory of the sunset makes you gasp with a feeling that is part praise and part love.  That is Magic.

Have you ever closed your eyes in a vast concert hall as the orchestra brings you to the crescendo of a musical experience that touches your soul?  Have you ever sensed your heart seeming to rise within you as you feel, more than hear, the musical vibrations that resonate all around you with the Meaning of Life and the Universe?  That is Magic.

Have you ever had the privilege to sail through a sea of bioluminescence, living points of light below you mimicking stars above, as you sail between two worlds in the center of all creation?  That is Magic.

Have you ever seen a baby in the arms of his or her loving parents, considered how that baby spontaneously came into being because of their love, realized how they determined, consciously or unconsciously, that it was time for this child to arrive?  Have you reflected on the marvel that this little human being, newly brought forth into this existence, looks a bit like the father, a bit like the mother, and is still completely unique in the history of humanity?  That is Magic.

Perhaps you have seen a seed fall to the ground, become covered with dirt and leaves, and lie through the long winter, to all appearances dead and gone… and then in the spring you watch it sprout.  A new seedling suddenly pops forth from the ground into the atmosphere, a stem and a single leaf reaching for the sun.  What triggered the rebirth?  It wasn’t sunlight, absent from that subterranean darkness, but somehow the grain of life within the seed knew the right time to come forth.  We are privileged to watch in wonder, even perhaps to benefit from the appearance of the new living plant… but I suspect the actual knowing, the transcendent essence of the experience may be beyond our ability to grasp completely.  A biologist might explain the process… but it’s still Magic.

So this morning at dawn I went straight from my bed to the kitchen, where I proceeded to stand an egg on this first day of spring.  Patiently I held it upright between my fingers, moved it slightly, waited to see how it would find its own balance.  Without warning, the egg began a dance of its own, bouncing ever so slightly from side to side, moving back and forth independently, almost imperceptibly, in response to an invisible force, seeking its own perfect position.  As always, I felt a thrill as the egg abruptly and inexplicably vibrated as if electrified, then settled peacefully into a stable upright position. 

Maybe we never will understand the forces that cause this phenomenon.  Or maybe someday, someone both intelligent and intuitive will explain.  Either way, it is still Magic.

I realize some of you may find this whole thing kind of silly.  You may think I am deluded and even if not, you ask, what difference this could possibly make to anyone?  You wonder why we should spend any time at all thinking about something so pointless.  You ask, “What does it matter?”  In response, let me share two great truths I have realized. 

The first truth is factual.  As wonderful as science is, as much knowledge as we modern human beings have gained, we don’t know it all.  There are still many mysteries all around us.  To neglect this would be arrogant, and also would spell the end of learning. 

The second truth is personal and evocative.  Mysterious and awesome things in our world are too often overlooked.  To perceive our world fully we should make an effort to look beyond the obvious, to see like a child without preconceptions standing in the way to obscure beauty and mystery.  To come as close as we can to understanding the big Meaning of Life, we must humble ourselves.  Only when we are humble in mind and spirit are we able to recognize the greatness around us, acknowledge the Magic, encounter the amazement, and experience the awe that by rights should be a part of our human experience. 

If you are reading this on the day it has been posted (or any subsequent equinox), I recommend that you go stand an egg.  But if not, don’t fret.  Even if the most recent equinox is past, the next is no more than a few months away.  Open your eyes to the unexpected and the unexplained.  Practice amazement.  Acknowledge the mystical, the magical, the wondrous and the awesome that exist all around you.  Affirm and embrace the Magic.  I do, nearly every day.  My wish for you is an astonishing life filled throughout with miraculous and meaningful encounters.

Blessings,

Gryphem