Beauty in the Aftermath

Rambling in the Rain

For the last several weeks there has been a torrent of rain, several inches of it alongside baseball sized hail, tornados to the north of me, and straight line winds that have done their damage to friends and neighbors alike. My grandfather stopped by to visit, just to show off the damage to his relatively new Nissan which had been so peppered in pockmarks you’d think he was in a shootout rather than a hailstorm. Just yesterday another bout of rain had come in, offering a sense of serene calm as I stood underneath my carport with a cup of coffee in hand. The rhythm of the rain landing on the roof was as if I had preferred seating for an all percussion orchestral arrangement. With it coming to a lull in in the mid-afternoon, I put on my boots and went for a long walk.

One could see where the waters flowed, how small puddles were formed out of deer tracks and the overflow of the ponder where many tadpoles had shimmied their way to the edge with their half-formed limbs and shortening tails. You could scoop up dozens in your hand if you had the patience to squat down by the edges of the water, something which in the fleeting moments of a Sunday afternoon I most certainly did. Walking through the woods, one could feel a breeze and relive if only for the briefest moment the downpour of rain that came earlier that day. The delightful calm of watching the flow of water form small streams and puddles, which will soon become their own ecosystems for just a few fleeting days as insects lay their eggs and the mosquitos finally arrive with the season much to my own frustration.

As the pond overflows and the crescendo of amphibious calls for a mate reach their peak one can follow a well worn trail of where the water runs through to the edge of the land only to puddle up in a corner next to two other parcels of land. Over the years I’ve seen minnows and other fish get caught along the way of this overflow, and in my attempts to save them before in the past have I carried a bucket to see how many I get back into the pond before the water dries up leaving them stranded to die. A silly story in retrospect, but it made for a good Reel Talk video:

A long rain will always fill up the spots and prints we leave behind on the softened earth, as I could walk along the hill atop of the pond and see the prints of dear now filled by water as the ground I walked upon became a smooth mud. I carefully avoided stepping on or next to the tracks, balancing on the edge as to not to disturb the sight or balance as we often see a few bucks running around the land or our neighbors. Some of you might be wondering why I’m telling you all this, just to write about the rain? Or my desire to be around the outdoors more than I do online? Perhaps. I write this as I find it to be of the upmost importance not to lose sight of what keeps us grounded.

One of the biggest things that has shaped my politics occurred nearly five years ago, when I went from one of America’s largest border cities to now living in a more rural part of the country. I had gone from not speaking the same language as my neighbors to having people open their storm cellars for their neighbors. That innate NIMBY attitude that comes with concerns over new housing developments and property taxes, while others prepare to sell cattle or just cut down their grocery bills by gardening. To get a small highway road I pass through winding small and decades old houses, many still adorned with Trump flags from 2016 and 2020, and many more with this on their flag poles.

Much of my political evolution has been going from being a rootless cosmopolitan (courtesy of my father’s enlisted military career) growing up abroad at the beginning of the War on Terror to making sense of what was and what has become of my country and her people since then, only to see what remains of healthy American culture become the public enemy of a totalizing progressive state. The downpour of reading, political engagement with traditional party politics to working within the system; See Here:

Looking at the Leviathan

However the greatest reprieve comes from taking a step back and walking down winding, muddy, and somewhat overgrown paths (I’ll mow when it dries) as I see the spring turn to summer, the blackberry bushes bright red berries tell me how soon it’ll be before they can be picked, or sights of new life that have risen from the ground flora and fauna alike. I’m reminded that even in the midst of terrible storms, troubles, warnings and destruction there is a quiet moment in the aftermath that doesn’t leave you and leaves you reminded by the Creator of your own mortality, even if you did survive in the midst of your shelter or just the comfort of your own home.

During the Texas Freeze in early 2021, we had the comfort of generators and intermittent power to keep us going. During our time outside in the snow and ice we had noticed dozens of birds frozen to death in their nests or were half-buried mounds of snow. They weren’t ready nor could they be such a cold wasn’t the type of environment they were made for. While my dog certainly had a fun time finding and playing with the semi-frozen remains, there was a morbid beauty of seeing a bird curled up in its nest in an icy sepulcher and know it will never take to the sky again. It sticks with you, even as the snow melts away, the power comes back on, and life goes back to normal.

Acts of nature, the force majeure, the Job-like wonder of suffering when your livelihood is destroyed by a tornado or a home ruined by a flash flooding when the rest pass you by leaves many wondering what goes on next. Over the last few weeks much time and effort has been spent by local congregations, volunteer groups, and officials to rebuild in the State of Oklahoma where numerous tornados had touched down. One little town, a town called Sulfur was essentially wiped off the face of the earth, hit by three different tornados in a row. The footage and testimony, as with any disaster sticks with you, but it always fade lest it is an experience you go through personally. In the abundance of social media, cameras, photos and now AI video, photos and “iconic images” have lost their weight compared to the century prior. There are a few “morbid curiosity” accounts or channels that talk about dangerous photos taken before disaster such as that before the 2004 tsunami or the last footage of dead storm chasers. The acts of God reduced down to a morbid, trivial consumable for factoids or something to talk about at the bar.

Even as I finish these thoughts more rain is on the forecast, something that will surely be a pain to deal with in my commute to work, but something I’ll be missing dearly as summer rolls around and the heat easily reaches into the triple digits. In the natural world, there is beauty in the aftermath. In the political one, such beauty is a momentary pause in either in our formulation of narratives of our low points or how this could be a moment where we return from the island of St. Helena. As for now, I’ll be walking again on my usual prayer routine around the land, my boots sloshing through the mud, taking a momentary pause to realize that despite how bad things may get, there is beauty in the aftermath and what you do in response to such disasters is what makes you, breaks you, and defines you.