I was struck by an eerie calm as I rode into its web of streets, a calm such as I imagine one experiences in a hurricane’s eye. It’s always fairly quiet in that serene neighborhood, but this quiet was different…no breeze, no sound, no movement…none at all.
I live just a few miles from the south shore of the lake named Eire, where we’ve been through a few days of alternating sun and showers. It’s humid, and when the sun shines, it’s very warm. Then, thick clouds move in to tease us with a few drops of rain, and it’s still very warm.
For a few moments a few hours ago,I felt as if I was in between things bigger than I, bigger than the neighborhood, bigger than life itself. Like being in the eye of a storm of cosmic proportions.
A thought passed through my mind: what if every single person on earth could enter a place of calm, even if it’s an eerie calm, as quiet as this? Am I not indeed blessed, though for reasons I will never understand?
As I rode through the meandering streets, I noticed a few new Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown signs springing up on lawns. They were joining the Donald Trump and Bernie Moreno signs that have been there for several weeks already, and which still are in the majority. Made my Democratic heart leap!
But what storms will follow this moment of calm? Perhaps next week’s convention in Chicago, and very likely the whole cataclysm of words and promises and events that will culminate in November’s election. I was in a calm destined not to last forever, heading toward a storm that may last the rest of my life.
And the old, once-popular, now sort of hokey-sounding prayer-song seeped through my helmet into my head: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
Indeed.
(As I post this, it is finally raining the kind of rain we need. May it keep at it for several hours.)
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