What the Thunder said not

This afternoon I woke up desolate from an afternoon nap. I’m on study leave for a couple of weeks and fell asleep when the math got too much for me.

When I feel negative I try to see if the word of God has anything for me. So I came upon Psalm 29 – “…the God of Glory thundereth…” Yes, there was thunder and rain this afternoon.

There was a time when I would have rejoiced at the coincidence. I used to think the monsoons were special on account of this very Psalm. Was God speaking through thunder to us who were too busy to heed His voice?

My grandmother, who was an evangelist in her abler years, used to fear lightning. So my mother once told me. Truth is even Mummy will not stay outdoors in thundery weather. Why the fear I asked once. Because lightning has been known to fall on people, she answered. We were in Kerala then, where the rains last from May to December. It was July when this conversation happened – the thick of the noisy monsoons. And Mummy went back in saying I should get back in too. But I stayed in the porch, eating mango and breadfruit, and wondering if God saw me... would say something to me.

Once, desperate to get answers about whether I could and should be an artist, I asked the question of the lightning-lit sky and waited to hear the answer. I told myself that if, immediately after I articulated the question in my heart, there were a long clap of thunder it would be a yes and if there were silence or a short clap, a no.

The careful part of me asked the question again... to be sure.

Silence greeted me second time though not the first. Or the third, ha ha ha!

I gave up. Could Satan use the sound of thunder I wondered… to mislead the simple? After all he used the forces of nature to destroy Job’s family and wealth, sanction though he had from the Almighty. I had not the courage to probe further…

Suffice to say I haven’t gone back to this dicey method of getting answers though questions I have several still. God’s voice might be still and small, I accept. Now to hear it Lord…

By the way, I still love the light and sound show in the sky.