Passing Storms
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It’s been said that better questions lead us naturally to better answers, and that it’s in not knowing that we open the doorway to knowing. I’m Scott Lennox and you’re listening to The Beautiful Question, a consideration of things that truly matter in a complex world.
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From time to time, life can hit us pretty hard, taking an incalculable toll on us. But more often than not, the strength in us outweighs our fragility.
Join me this week as we consider what it means to keep going in the face of adversity. Stay with me.
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To set the stage for our consideration this week, I’ll begin with a journal entry from a couple of years ago.
After the violence of last night’s storm, it’s good to sit in the stillness of the back porch this morning with my dog beside me. It’s good to drink coffee and listen to the world awaken again. And it’s good to appreciate this moment. One of the gifts the storm gave me is an even deeper appreciation for my life and the countless ways I’ve been blessed. How amazing to have come through last night unscathed. And how amazing it is to be alive right now.
photo: Scott Lennox
from the author’s daily journal
How vividly I remember that stormy night and the quiet morning that followed. Not long after I had fallen asleep, I was awakened by the weather alert sounding on my cell phone advising me to take cover immediately. A line of treacherous storms covering many miles and was bearing down on my area at a murderous pace. As is typical of Texas summer storms, the one heading toward me was expected to bring strong winds and heavy rains and the possibility of tornadoes. Though I’ve been through it innumerable times, I took no foolish chances.
As the storm hit, it kept its promise and I found myself sheltering in the center of the house with my dog and the things we’d need should the worst happen. As the storm beat fiercely against the house for well over an hour, I could hear the sound of sirens wailing in the distance.
Then, all at once, [ storm sounds abruptly end ] an eerie silence.
When I stepped outside, I saw large limbs that had been ripped away from the trees up and down my street, which was carpeted with leaves and smaller branches and other debris. Once again, I was more than fortunate that my house was intact and so was I and so was my dog. There was nothing left to do but go back to bed and go back to sleep.
Yet another storm had passed, and I was still here to tell the tale.
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Like many other people, I’ve gone through a number of traumatic events in my life—typhoon, assault, grief, combat, cancer, depression, the deaths of both parents. The list is a long one. Surviving those things felt a lot like the thunderstorm. In each case, something had come that seemed bigger than life. And in each case, I could do little more than hunker down and stay as loose and as focused as I could as I rode it out.
Some of those events took an exceedingly long time in their passing and left much more in their wake than snapped limbs and littered streets and downed power lines and shingles ripped away. The toll they exacted was emotional and psychological as well as physical. Yet, as each of them passed and I was still here, I found myself brought back to the same place—sitting in the stillness, appreciating my life, and consciously celebrating the fact that what is strong and vital in me has somehow endured.
How amazing it is that human beings are built to keep going!
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To be clear, I don’t have my head in the clouds about that. Far from it. I’m aware that we don’t get to choose what life throws at us. I’m aware that there are times when what comes is far more than we can endure or survive. And perhaps now more than ever, I’m fully aware of our mortality and all that comes with it.
But that being said, I’ve grown increasingly aware of how capable and courageous and resilient we are, aware of our built-in abilities to survive and regroup and flexibly keep going in the face and in the wake of adversity, aware of our built-in creativity and adaptability. Were these things not true, human civilization would have died off long ago.
With that foundational reality as a platform, I offer this week’s three Beautiful Questions for your consideration, each of them centered on your own experience.
Question One: What have you endured and come through still standing?
Question Two: What inner qualities helped you to survive and keep going?
Question Three: On this side of all the “storms” you’ve survived, whatever they were, what do you know about yourself now that you could have learned in no other way?
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After you’ve sat with these questions for a while, write and tell me your responses. I’m listening.
As I say each week,
My Light with Your Light!
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Thank you for joining me in these podcasts as we keep doing the things we can to respond to life in increasingly effective ways. As always, I’m open to your comments and feedback.
You can be further inspired by visiting my friends at Kosmos Journal. That’s K O S M O S Journal. Their mission is to inform, inspire, and engage global transformation in harmony with all life. You can easily find them online at Kosmos Journal dot O R G.
And at thebeautifulquestion.com, you can read the illustrated transcript of each podcast as you listen. You’ll also find an archive of all previous podcasts, including episodes three and four, guided relaxation audios that can help you practice letting go on a daily basis.
If you find these podcasts useful, don’t hesitate to share them or tell others about them. That’s a great way of helping me get a voice of calm and collaboration and balance and encouragement out into the world.
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I’m Scott Lennox, and this has been The Beautiful Question.
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The Beautiful Question is a One Light production, written, produced, and engineered by Scott Lennox at HeartRock Studios in Fort Worth, Texas, as a way of paying forward to life, being fully present, becoming better engaged with things that truly matter in a complex world, and committing to a healthier future for all of us.