Well, most of the time.

I don’t like the ones that turn into tornados and thankfully, I’ve never witnessed that first-hand.  And I don’t like the ones that drop little ice balls making dents in all things from plants to vehicles.  One time, during a particularly rollicking thunderstorm at my last apartment, I heard a really loud clattering sound–louder than regular old hail pelting the world outside.  I went into my kitchen and found that ice balls were raining down on my stove from the air vent above.  I literally proclaimed out loud, “Oh HAIL no!”  Seriously?  It’s hailing in my kitchen?!?

I realize I’m making a very poor case for the claim that I love thunderstorms, but I really do.  Its one of the reasons I love front porches; you can sit on them watching the storm–of course you need a big enough porch so you can sit safely watching the storm.

I’m amazed at how the whole world will whip into wild fury and sometimes, as quickly as it all stirred up, its gone again and THEN, then its time to look for rainbows.

Maybe I love them so because I love analogies and metaphors and so often storms feel comfortable because they reflect what goes on inside of me: the clashing of hot and cold; the opposing parts of my self careening together to make loud rumbles and the electric sparks of passion and feistiness crackling through the soul really do make quite the spectacle.  Add to that rain–sweet rain–in which I love to dance and play and run, and wind whose whispers and shouts both of which I so very much adore.

So often too there is a freshness to the earth after such a vigorous cleansing.  The air is clearer, the world has been washed, even the cars look better after a great hard rain!  New life thrives and birdsongs have fresh melody.  There is something so awe-inspiring about creation shouting and hurling its woes via storm and then everything subsiding to yeild sun and rainbow laden water prisms.

Even when a storms yeild such destruction, there is time for rebuilding, regrowing, renewing.   There is balance.

Classic Texas storm that you can see rolling cross-country for miles. I took this on a road-trip from Texas to California last summer, actually, just a year ago.