God Is Moving His Furniture

Today was a busy day for me. A fun one in a few ways too. Unusual for a Monday. And to top it off, a storm is unleashing it's awesome power.

It's been warm and close all day long, and now, as expected, that oppressive feeling in the air has engendered a storm over beautiful Adelaide.

Throaty rumbles of thunder are roaring over my roof as I type, with the sky, as seen from my lounge window, punctuated here and there with streaks of lightning.

I've always loved storms. The smell, the sense of the power exerted by mother nature...it's quite intoxicating. I have my windows open too.

I used to sit at my open bedroom window, wrapped up in a big blue blanket, reading books while a storm raged around me. The blue blanket actually belonged to my childhood dog, Reba - a lovely memory that surfaced as I reflected on my love of storms.

I even remember a neighbour, a goody two-shoes who seemingly meant well, come to my house one day. It had been the morning after a storm and she was breaking her neck to get a hold of my mum. She just had to tell my mum about what I had been up to - sitting at an open window in a storm. I wasn't selling crack cocaine. I wasn't flashing my uglies to unsuspecting passers-by. I wasn't even trying to sign people up to a Kylie Minogue Fan Club. I was simply sitting at an open window.

Yes I could have been struck by lightning. But I could also be struck by lightning in the centre of my bedroom. Much stranger things have happened.

My mother thanked her with a subtle smile, not taking the woman seriously for a blind second.

And I always remember how my parents explained a storm to me as a very young child, so as to minimise my fear.

Thunder was simply God moving His furniture, high above our heads. The lightning was God switching the lights on and off as He went from room to room. A lovely image for me as a kid. It was a more romantic idea for me, than the boring science based explanation of ice and water in clouds, creating friction and becoming charged positively and negatively, resulting in the spectacular show we have all come to expect of a thunderstorm.

How were storms explained to you as a kid?