Psalm 30: The Sky is Clearer after the Storm

(1)

W. Back where I came from, all typhoons are female. I don’t mean that they are given female characteristics—just female names. The first typhoon of the season is given a female name that starts in the letter A, the next one with the letter B, and on to the last letter of the alphabet—Y in this case, for the last letter in the Filipino alphabet is Y, not Z. And the names alway end in -ing—a very Filipino oddity.

Most typhoons are forgettable. They are forgettable because they are more fun than fearsome. There have been more fun typhoons in my childhood than I can remember. These are the ones with more rain than wind. You get to walk to and from school in your raincoat and boots. You take twice as long getting home because you’re racing paper boats down a flooded street with your friends.

(Paper boat origami demonstration. The thicker, more compact, and balanced your boat is, the farther it will go.)

I won a few of these races in my day.

And by the time you get home, your feet are sloshing in your waterlogged rain boots. You never get home dry. If you do, you haven’t had enough fun.

And, of course, you get to stay home when classes are cancelled. You take long naps as the sound of rain pouring down sheets of aluminum roof calms you to sleep.

Think of all the fun we miss here in California for not having typhoons! Give me typhoons over earthquakes and fire any day!

(2)

Then there are those storms you never forget. They strike such fear in you. Imagine wind like a slave master using rain as a whip to beat down the walls of your house. Imagine this same wind rip your your aluminum roof sheets apart and send it flying in the air like paper. Imagine trees bending in unison until they cannot bend any further. Imagine them uprooted. Imagine torn tree branches fly like axe heads loosed from their handles by their master’s furious swing—imagine these flying with deadly velocity in every direction imaginable. Imagine electric poles felled like dominos for miles and miles as if some unseen hand hand forced them to fall in one direction.

(Pause)

I am now an adult. In my second store

I was in such a storm more than once. One such storm stands out. Because I got to experience its entire life, from the first fury to the eye of the storm then the final fury.