On Saturday evening my television and
phone went crazy! Lots of alerts about the possibility of a tornado heading my
way.
I noticed a lot of wind and rain so I
went outside on the covered patio to experience it. I know, I know, but standing
out there with a cigar and a cold beer was great!
On Sunday my neighbor (who had been
sheltering in their bathroom) came over and said, “Oh yeah, you know that the
tornado jumped over our neighborhood, right?”
Say what?
I asked, “So, when it was raining sideways
and the big pine trees were leaning about half-way to horizontal, that was when
the tornado was right overhead?”
Correct.
Well….ahem…I guess the person who just
broke up with me was wrong. She alluded to the fact…no…she may have actually
said that sometimes I was just evil. But, if I was evil there’s a possibility
that Tommy Tornado would have grabbed me up and deposited me somewhere out near
Duck, North Carolina. You know, just kind of a karmic thing to set the world
straight.
Yes, I’m being silly and serious at the
same time.
In life we are often lucky and unlucky
at the same time. For little reason at all…and, too often, for no reason that
we can lay claim to…good fortune and/or bad fortune simply jumps over us.
There’s no rhyme or reason, it just
moves on by. Sometimes we know about it, like my alerts; sometimes we don’t, so
we don’t realize we could have been helped or hurt.
But, here’s the deal…it’s happening all
the time. Every day an idea, opportunity (good or bad) or person comes close to
us. If we aren’t open and receptive—or, at least careful—we miss it.
And, while
it isn’t fun to have the negative stuff land on us there’s no telling how much
good in life we miss simply because we have our eyes on the ground and our
minds and hearts closed.
Open up, look around, listen and watch
for the alerts…they’re out there.