Hurricanes and their predecessors are usually the only natural phenomenons that get names. Tornados usually move through an area rapidly.
Both of those were upended the last several weeks, as Tornado WCG descended over the DFW area for an extended stay. The resulting destruction was about what you’d expect from a cat-5 tornado moving in and around an area for two-and-a-half months. NRH2O, Six Flags, Urban Air, Schlitterbahn, Chucky Cheese, iFly, Hurricane Harbor, both area zoos, Chick-fil-A, every Sonic within a ten-mile radius, a couple of innocent bystanders with pools, the world’s most nervous bulldog, and four grandparents still aren’t quite sure what hit them.
We’re all also ready for another visit. Just give us a month or so to recover.
The owner of the world’s most nervous bulldog thought it was a good idea to put an acetylene torch in the WCG’s hands. I’m not sure which of them enjoyed it more.
The U.S. as a whole doesn’t like to deal in nuance, shades of grey. This makes it difficult to discuss anything of substance1, including all of the “How are you?”’s since the kids left. (It’s been a week-and-a-half; in general, it’s not a good idea to write when you’re emotional.)
Which thing would you like to talk about? How glad we are they’re serving the Lord, and doing what God has called them to? Or how sad we are that that happens to be, literally, on the other side of the world? How thrilled we are that we live in a magical age when you can video chat to anywhere on the planet (that has internet) for free? Or how bummed we are that seeing them in person two or three times a week has turned into two or three weeks a year (excluding furloughs)? How much fun we had? Or how there’s not going to be any more for several months?
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”2 I don’t know about intelligence, but I do know that it is a test of life.
- Anything, full stop.
- In his essay “The Crack-Up.”
Thank you.