Go Beyond

My son Jonathan and his friends Ben and Jay spent a couple of days this week chasing Hurricane Isaac, the slow-moving but powerful Category 1 storm that made landfall Tuesday evening on Louisiana’s southeast coast with 80 mph winds. When Jonathan called to tell me that his buddies had invited him to join them on this meteorological excursion my response was, “Be careful, call or text when you can, and enjoy the adventure.” I don’t really have a bucket list but if I did I think that flying into the eye of a hurricane with those guys who do that sort of thing in airplanes laden with weather gear would definitely be on my list. In a day when every mountain has been climbed and almost every corner of the planet explored, every storm presents a dynamic new challenge to those who study all things weather-related.

Jonathan’s friend Ben has a background in weather and has all sorts of gear to measure and monitor weather stuff. Once in Louisiana, the guys mounted the weather gear on Ben’s truck, hooked it up to their laptops, and rode out the storm. They took lots of photos and talked about their weather readings through the night. The following day they were able to see the destruction that the storm left in its wake — everything from downed power lines, over-turned trucks, a shingled roof that landed near where they parked, and a landscape littered with all sorts of miscellaneous hurricane dandruff and debris. That’s the nature of storms. They tend to change the landscape and often alter the lives of those in their path.

One thing is certain, storms are a part of life and we can’t escape them all. Sometimes we just have to hunker down and ride them out. Other times we have to strengthen our resolve and keep going in spite of the wind and rain. Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” That’s good advice. In 1986, Maine businessman Dodge Morgan sailed alone around the world. He dealt with some unbelievable storms along the way. When Morgan neared the half-way point of his trip the weather turned against him. As he looked at one of the six on-board cameras that silently chronicled his journey he said, “I may not be able to get through this day, but I can get through the next hour.” Later, one of the on-board cameras recorded Morgan saying, “Calm down, stay with it, one hour at a time.” Morgan made it through the storm that threatened to end his journey by pressing on one hour at a time.

I don’t know what storms you are facing, but know this — you don’t have to face them alone and you can make it through to calmer days. As I followed Jonathan’s journey online on his SpotTracker page, I was reminded of Scott Krippayne’s song entitled “Sometimes He Calms the Storm.” My favorite line in the song is this: “Sometimes He calms the storm and other times He calms His child.” Either way, He is faithful to help us when we are chasing storms and when storms are chasing us.