I am not a writer in any stretch of the imagination. But I know how to read and have enjoyed posting words that have been crafted so beautifully. This morning as I was meandering on the web, I stumbled upon such a wonderful treasure of words. The following is from someone that has such a giving heart (His blog is Ockham's Toothbrush). I needed to hear these words today.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: They say a picture is worth
a thousand words. Because of rain, I did not have a camera when the following
took place, so this will have to do. At the traditional exchange rate, you're
actually getting a little bit of a bargain. Just take my word for
it.
July 11, 2012
For two days the clouds had just
teased us; playful giants garbed in gauzy lace, crouching on our horizon,
dodging or outrunning us as we sped across the salt flats of Utah. In Salt Lake
City they taunted us with a puff of cool breath in our faces as they peered over
mountainous hiding places, like they were contemplating a dazzling display of
sound and fury. However, as we put the Great Salt Lake into our rearview mirror
and headed into Idaho, they abandoned us, as if a vacationing family of four was
beneath their interest.
But as we pulled into Yellowstone, the clouds gathered
themselves and pounced, stabbing the ground with fluorescent blades and roaring
their pleasure with a deep and throaty chuckle. A stiff, cold wind hissed in
the pines and spattering raindrops chased us into our room in the Old Faithful
Inn.
Before we even started to settle in and admire the rustic
redwood paneling of our room, we dashed to the window and threw it open to watch
the trees kowtow to the wind and listen to the growl of thunder. From our
second story room we could see steam rising from across Upper Geyser Basin as
each fountain waited for its turn to impress the park guests, but these
geothermal wonders were unable to hold our attention against the gathering
storm.
The Old Faithful Geyser is different from any of its
brothers. Its eruptions can be predicted to within fifteen minutes, as opposed
to several hours, days, or in some cases, years. The park rangers told us that
Old Faithful used to be even more predictable, but a couple of earthquakes over
the last century caused it to mellow a bit, no longer sticking to so strict a
timetable. As the storm intensified outside, a thought germinated inside my
mind…what would it be like to watch Old Faithful erupt in the middle of a
thunderstorm? I find ideas like this difficult to ignore and it wasn’t long
before the idea blossomed into action. I pulled on my coat and announced I was
going outside.
“What?!” My younger daughter Meredith was incredulous.
Anneka, my sixteen-year-old, regarded me warily, as if my sudden bout of
insanity might be a disease that could spread if I got too close. But my wife
Jenny seemed to understand, and almost expected it. “Have fun!” she laughed.
The raindrops crackled against my hood and stung my legs as
I walked the 100 yards or so to the viewing decks. Normally, the faux-wooden
structures are groaning under the weight of hundreds of park guest waiting to
view the latest eruption, but in the middle of the storm only a handful of us
were foolish enough to be there now.
The cauldron hissed and steamed and occasionally gurgled up
a splash of boiling water. The eruption could happen in a matter of minutes, or
delay as long as a half an hour. I could sense the rain starting to abate and I
feared that what I came to see, this symphony of storm and steam, would fail to
materialize. Sure enough, the wind began to die and the rain slackened even
more. It seemed the thunderheads had tantalized us with the promise of a
spectacular display, only to now impishly withdraw the offer.
But it turns out they had other things in mind. Like a
giantess daintily raising her skirt to step over a puddle, the clouds lifted off
the horizon, and the setting sun peeked shyly through. The small knot of people
gasped and cooed as a rainbow appeared, as if growing out of the cauldron itself
and arcing its way across the sky into the forest where pines waited with
outstretched arms to catch it. Gaining confidence, the setting sun smiled,
drenching the forests, the spectators, and the steam in orange as the rainbow's
hues deepened. Unable to contain its own brightness, another rainbow spawned
and began hovering over the first protectively.
Meanwhile, the cauldron frothed and bubbled, roaring,
hissing, subsiding, as if it had decided to pick up the game of hide-and-seek
that the storm had abandoned. The few of us huddled on the deck cheered, urged,
and groaned. We laughed and joked together, a tiny family brought together by
this potential masterpiece-in-process.
Old Faithful sputtered. "She's
teasing us now," said an elderly gentleman in khaki shorts and a Yellowstone
sweatshirt. "I bet the rainbows fade before she blows,"
"It'd be amazing if they didn't though," a young father
with a child on his shoulders responded. We all murmured in agreement. We held
our breath, but the geyser only belched lazily.
I glanced at the sky. The gap between the sun and
clouds had grown, and the storm was skipping gleefully to another part of the
park. It looked like the old man would be right.
But the cauldron
gurgled again, spat, and then, suddenly, roared. It spewed a stream of boiling
water high into the sky, right on time. The geyser threw steam into the arc of
the double rainbow, an orange, glowing cloud.
Liking what it saw, the sun
threw back its head and laughed, and the rainbow brightened, hardened, and
crystallized into a perfect semi-circle of ruby, amber, garnet, emerald,
sapphire, and amethyst. Even as the geyser reached its zenith, the wind
diminished to a breath and the raindrops ceased, the sky flashed one last time
and the storm chuckled its approval, crackling lightning down behind the
glittering arch.
“Can you believe it?” we all gushed. “The double
rainbow!...wasn’t it amazing?...The sunset!...The geyser!...then the
lightning!...”
It’s times like this I find it easy to believe in God. He
was palpable here, a master artist using every color in his palette and every
tool in his workshop, rolling up his sleeves for the sheer joy of creating
something beautiful yet ephemeral for the delight of his sons and
daughters.
Sometimes you just have to be willing to brave the storm
and take a closer look.
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