Wind Power
It was before dawn; there was light rain but it was forecast soon to end and in any event it wasn’t much. So I jogged my customary mile and sat in a coffee shop. Suddenly the wind was extraordinarily strong. Another customer arrived with a report that he had seen temporary fences at a construction site flattened; as he entered, the wind opened the shop’s other door. The manager went out to make sure the umbrellas, which were down, were properly secured. She reported that metal pieces had blown off a nearby building and she had dragged them out of the street.
I was done writing and ready to go home. On the trail there were many little branches, sticks and leaves strewn along the way. In their high parts the trees alternated between stillness and wild dancing, swaying like partiers to a music I could not hear. A chuck of tree came loose ahead; it collapsed into neighboring branches yet remained aloft, exhausted yet held up, for yet awhile, by its friends. Similar tree-chunks elsewhere lay across the trail.
The manager had said, “Be safe.” But there is no safety. Suddenly the world changes; the wind, hot and violent, arrives unexpectedly; and the familiar, clear path before you turns to wilderness. An old news report came to mind of a death in Central Park, someone felled by a tree. There is no safety, yet wind is ephemeral; before I got home it was calm again, and I started seeing other runners.
As they say, “This too shall pass.” But what’s important is: you may be the only one on the trail, but you are never alone. Even in our ultimate passing we are not alone: there is a hand there, waiting to take ours, if we will take his. There is no safety, but there is also no aloneness.
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Out & About: This Sunday, June 2, at 5 p.m., the Good Books & Good Talk seminar meets at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Dallas. We will discuss Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and anyone who has read the book is welcome to participate. (You can come if you haven’t read it, but we will ask you to keep silence.) The seminar runs to 6:30 p.m. New instructions for parking at St. Matthew’s: You may now park in the new apartment building south of the cathedral, in any open spot on the first three levels. Once there, just walk across the cathedral close (the new, lovely open space between the cathedral and Garrett Hall). We will be meeting in the great hall, which is straight across from the parking. One of the red doors to the great hall will be unlocked for the seminar (but if you find it locked, we will be close enough to hear a knocking).
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On the Web: Oliver O’Donovan is to my mind the leading Anglican moral theologian of our day. There are two new conversations with him at “Mere Fidelity,” one on ethics and one on politics. Here’s the one on ethics: https://soundcloud.com/mere-fidelity/christian-ethics-with-oliver-odonovan