It was a very blustery day. Gusty really.
Me: “Draw a picture of the wind.”
The Spy (he’s 8): “That’s easy. Give me the paper”
(I hand him the paper)
The Spy: “Wait. Just draw wind? Or trees and stuff?”
Me: “Whatever is your best depiction of wind. You choose. It just needs to be a good drawing. I’m probably going to scan it in.”
30 seconds later:
Not his best work.
Me: “Maybe yeah add trees and stuff. Do another drawing.”
30 seconds later:
Ok his heart wasn’t in it.
He was eager to get back to Calvin and Hobbes (It’s a Magical World). But even if you try your best, it’s basically impossible to depict every aspect of wind.
You can photograph a flag blowing.
Hair blowing.
Trees swaying.
But without a baseline image of the trees, how is one to know that the image shot are the trees displaced?
A breeze and a gust are hard to distinguish in an image.
And the images are missing the sound. Let’s give it a go with words.
A low tone rumbles in the distance. Advances through the trees. The rumble builds, changes pitch and then…whhoooooooooshhhhh leaves are flying, branches are cracking. Your eyes widen and dart up to the trees. They swing wildly. You’re overcome and thinking of nothing but the wind. The gust hurls through.
And then you get on with whatever you were doing. Unless your power is out. Or your house is destroyed. Then you get on with cleaning up or, God forbid, planning a funeral. That’s why your eyes widen and dart up to the trees. The pictures of post-storm damages never seem to capture the wide-eyed power of the wind. Fortunately, our windy day did no harm (to us). But the same winds/storm did do a bunch of damage across the Midwest today.
Wind or no wind unfortunate things happen all the time. Thus is life.
Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3:8:
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”
Well, we do have Doppler radar but the actual wind is still pretty mysterious and complex. We can’t predict its path with any real certainty. We can’t gauge its strength in a photograph. We can’t fully give voice to its sound with words. And we certainly can’t govern it. Jesus mentioned the wind in trying to illustrate that some things (flesh vs. the Spirit, being “born” again) are basically impossible to understand. It’s ok to accept some things as incomprehensible and look beyond a “narrowly naturalistic view of human beings”*. Being overwhelmed by the beauty of things like a mighty, rushing wind(y day) facilitates this leap of faith for me.
Baby discusses the wind with the Spy
At our neighbor’s
Jumping
Swinging
Another angle
Time for tricks!
Baby gymnast
Baby Yogi
Southeast corner of the garden (facing south/southwest)
Northeast corner of the garden (facing south/southwest) (and Dexie)
*The quote is from the “study note” on James 3:8. From The Lutheran Study Bible English Standard Version Concordia Publishing House St. Louis, MO
The primal unconscious and most instant darting glance up at the trees…it unites us all. I was doing the very same thing whilst sitting in the afternoon sunshine in our veggie garden with the dogs yesterday and listening to the tree branches creak in the wind. Tasmania is a VERY windy place (lots of vegetarians live here ;) ) and it’s been a tough year on the trees. We have had 3 of them (large ones) fall down on the property recently so hearing branches creak when you are sitting under said tree tends to bring out the primal survival instincts…
I agree with you on the leap of faith and baby is certainly leaping with faith :). I love that image of baby and the spy on the swing. Dexies corner eh? I bet she really rules the garden. I know that Earl bounds from one garden bed to the next in search of the elusive “lizard of happiness”…he is a bit uncoordinated though and rarely gets his lizard. He ALWAYS gets the garden bed though ;)
ba dum pssshhh on your windy joke AHHAHA. Dexie does go wild in the garden and runs full force round and round. It doesn’t matter so much now, but come spring with delicate seedlings in the ground I will probably be changing my tune!
I forgot to mention that I LOVED the Spy’s minimalist drawings – I immediately got that he had captured the wind! And your pic with Baby’s hair flying was perfect. and Baby Yogi! The look on Spy’s face as he listened to B. discussing the wind was sweet, as was the one taken from behind them sharing the swing. Print that one up for the mantel, it’s a keeper!
:) thanks!!
I’ve always been in awe of the wind. As kids, we loved to run around in the wind that came just prior to thunderstorms, then we’d go inside and make tents with blankets and the furniture. The sense of adventure averted our fear. Now as an adult, I know what havoc wind can wreak and I have great respect for it. It is beyond comprehension that the wind was 195 mph in the Philippines. I have trouble imagining it. They had to create a new category for it as it was beyond what had been recorded to date. Scary indeed. Kinda makes you grateful for an average breezy, gusty day! I call it Nature’s pruning. It brings down lots of kindling!
We had winds here today but nowhere near as bad as those in the US. Trees were felled and hail fell. Luckily nobody was hurt.
I sat in the office with one of my managers and listened to the hail pinging against the window and the wind sneaking in around the window seals grateful that I was dry and warm inside.
GREAT POST!
Thanks! ;)