California Sunset
by Eugene Patterson

This picture reminds me of the good old days that seemed like a different lifetime. I was young…so very young, and so clueless about everything. Can you imagine a child of eight whose best friend was her horse and who didn’t know what gossip was? Well, I didn’t. And living in peaceful Simi Valley, California, where I was in church every time the doors opened for worship or Bible study, and whose other best friends were always there with her in church, I remained happily ignorant. I discovered the hard way that it would behoove me to learn a little more about the ways of the world, if for no other reason than to avoid getting beaten up by mean girls and getting called into the PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE.

It started innocently enough. A girl I knew in elementary school came running up to me, excited, and whispered in my ear, “Cheryl, {this was long before I chose my pen name} did you know Kathy is going to Juvie? Spread it around!” Unfortunately, I had no idea what Juvie was. Some kind of weird party? So I did what I was told and let others know about Kathy’s great news. I wondered if I would ever get to be invited to Juvie.

I found out at the end of the day as we were getting on the bus–the one Kathy and her two hench girls rode with me–that I had been tricked by Kathy’s “friend” to spread the rumor about juvie, which turned out to be a bad place where troublemakers went. I realized she belonged in this place of detention, especially since she and her two friends threatened to kill me when we got off at the bus stop.

On the bus, I sat down beside a friend of mine, Beth. She seemed happy for my company, despite the fact that I was to die soon. Beth didn’t have a lot of friends, simply because she was extremely overweight. You know how kids can be. And you know how kids without many friends can be–faithful to the friends they do have. I told Beth how frightened I was. We talked about it most of the way to our bus stop. She was worried and didn’t want to leave me alone, but I bravely told her I would be okay. She reluctantly walked to her mother’s car and got in.

I, on the other hand, took one look at the gang of three angry, scary looking girls waiting for me on the street, and I took off running. They followed. At least I got my exercise that  day. They did, too, because they didn’t want to give up, and they had apparently exercised more than I. They got closer within a few blocks, shouting threats and scaring me to the point that I’d have loved to’ve seen a girls’ restroom nearby. I nearly didn’t need one when a loud horn sounded behind us and an angry lady stuck her head out and yelled at the girls chasing me. She was Beth’s mom. Beth, my loyal friend, rescued me that day.

Beth’s mom made sure I made it safely home–which was out in the country, far from the housing complex where I met the bus every morning.

I learned a lesson that day. Several, actually. Rumors are not good, especially if you don’t know anything about them. If you want to spread good news, make sure it’s good. Also, make friends who may not be popular with the popular crowd, because popularity for sure isn’t what it’s made out to be. That works in adulthood, too. Look past the outer layer of a person. Look past the prickly parts that might scare others away. Look into the heart, and give them time to come out of their shell. You may well find your most loyal friendships in just that way.

Mel received this picture from a friend online. Someone working on an oil rig was apparently fascinated by the lightning, so he wanted to take some photos. See the shape in the middle? Can you tell what it is? Can you imagine what must have gone through his mind when he saw it? I wonder if he was prepared to escape the unexpected. We had one of these rip through our small town a few years ago. We watched it in the sky from the church door in the next town. Terrifying how much power can be harnessed by the right angle of wind and and currents moving through the air. The man who took this picture got out alive, in case you were wondering. Some people lost everything in our tornado a few years ago.

I understand the fascination with danger this man must have felt. I was standing in our front yard about a year after the tornado took out our downtown. The tornado alarms were going off again, and it was almost a year to the day since we’d lost one of our citizens rescuing others from the attacking monster. I stepped out into the front yard and peered down toward the end of our road to see the tornado spotters doing their thing. So I looked around at the clouds. I love looking at clouds, anyway. I just happened to look up (have I told you about this before? I probably have. I’m of the age when I repeat my fun stories often) and I saw the clouds moving in a strange way. It was as if all the clouds in the center of a pre-ordered circle moved outward toward the edge of that circle, slowly, leisurely. Fascinated, I continued to watch as the perfectly rounded edges of that circle formed and began to turn. I couldn’t remember if it was in a clockwise fashion or counter clockwise. I only knew I was so excited that I ran into the house and hollered at Mel to come out and see this fabulous cloud formation.

Well, the spoil sport took one look at the formation, gasped, grabbed me and told me, “Get in the basement. Now!”

I stopped and took one final look at that beautiful formation as it circled with more speed, but Mel didn’t allow me time to enjoy it. I found myself unceremoniously dragged to the basement, to the room where Mel was keeping all his model airplanes at the time. It was the only room in the basement without windows. I looked at the propellers and could just envision them being spun by the power of the forming tornado outside. We moved those airplanes out of their safe hangar after that.

But we were prepared. We had a concrete bunker below the concrete porch steps that was completely underground and could pretty much fend off anything.

We may be partially ready for a tornado coming our way, but we can’t be prepared for everything. That’s one reason I’m glad we have Someone to take up the slack when we get caught unaware. I’ve heard so many people tell about miracles they’ve seen after Joplin, MO, was devastated by a huge tornado last year. I’ve seen people give up their own lives to save others. I’ve overheard recordings of people stuck in a convenience store as the tornado honed in on them. What I heard were strangers looking out for one another, praying, helping. And since then I’ve heard many people of faith tell about how their faith was tested and proved in the fire of the devastation that most people couldn’t imagine would ever bring about good.

Are you prepared? Most of us are rich by the world’s standards, despite what we might be going through right now, but if you lost it all, are you prepared to see the miracles God can produce amidst the chaos?