City Show

There’s a thunder show happening outside my window. It seems it hardly ever rains in Chicago, and when it does you can’t decipher whether it’s actually precipitation or the condensation from the air conditioners atop the buildings. But tonight there’s a decided thunderstorm. The clouds have given allowance to weight, and the city below has nothing to say about it.

It’s romantic, really. Majestic and beautiful. The city sky is constantly speckled with sterile lights from mounting buildings. The city never really grows dark, even just before dawn. This city introduces itself as a working city, a busy city, a scheduled city. But each time the lightning asserts itself as the backdrop for the skyline, the city pales for a moment in comparison. For just a flash of time, the city lights aren’t so impressing and boastful.

The rain won’t last long. It will probably slow to a dither by the time I fill this page with thoughts about the show. Even so, there’s a moment here to be had, where every man and woman in this city is subject to the peace of a rainstorm. No running errands or running for exercise. Everything must slow. Maybe if we’re lucky, the power will even go out.

There…it’s ending, just as predicted. The rumbling of the black overhang is distancing itself more with every sentence pressed to the page. Soon it will be gone entirely, and I’ll be left alone with the stale, numbing light of my computer screen, wondering what to write about next and asking God why He called it away so quickly.

But for now, I’ll enjoy the peace after the storm. There is a peace after each. When the earth is left quenched and its inhabitants are left pensive. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’re left wondering about the Director of this great show. If we’re honest, we’re curious to know Him, to touch Him; to feel Him like the drops trickling through our hair and spilling into our ears.

But that’s if we were honest. And this race is not known for its honesty.

So we’ll ponder and move on, reminded that we have much to do now that the rain has ended. There’s to-do lists to finish. Phone calls to make. And time lost to an annoyance of nature.

But some of us wait for next time.