I’d watched the storm tracking across southern Nebraska and northern Kansas for a while via online radar. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the radar was not live; it was on a fifteen-minute delay.

But boy howdy, did I know it when the storm got there anyway! There was a darkness that seemed too sudden to be natural just before the rain began. Tree branches bent wildly as a tremendous gust shook the windows and swirled brackets of rain around the building. In the midst of all that fury and motion, my ears popped. You know, like when you’re riding in a plane that gains altitude at a fairly quick pace. Just as I opened my mouth and relieved the pressure, I realized the significance of that tiny response.

The reason your ears pop during altitude changes, which you already know, is because of the change in air pressure. Perhaps uncomfortable but not alarming when you’re in an airplane. Quite another matter when you’re sitting in your office and remember that a tornado creates a sudden and drastic drop in localized air pressure. I bolted down the stairs, a bit wide-eyed according to witnesses at the scene and asked them if their ears had popped.

In retrospect, I can see that it’s a rather odd question, especially when asked those who do not have the shared experience and context of interpretation. Their answers were uniformly negative and their facial expressions indicated a high level of consensus that they thought I’d lost it.

The next day, while getting my hair cut at the local hair-cutting place, I talked to Megan about the storm. “Yeah,” she said, “a guy that lives right at the edge of town said he saw a funnel cloud over Highland.” Then she added a detail that I already knew, “It didn’t touch down.”

I suspect I would have been among the first to know it if it had touched down. Not so sure I’d have told anyone about it but I’m pretty sure I would have known. I knew when my ears popped like that that something serious was going on nearby.

Our natural bodies have ways of letting us know a lot of things we may not heed, think about or even realize at the time. Our spirits have a similar ability to tilt us toward things of a spiritual nature but many are so used to ignoring it that the capacity is not developed. Rather, we have a vague sense that something is missing, something isn’t right. Ignored or perverted, that sense leads us into a myriad of twisted efforts that compound our frustration, loneliness and emptiness. Heeded, that sense has the capacity to lead us into knowledge greater than the mind and love greater than the heart.

It has the capacity to draw us toward God.

H. Arnett
5/28/10