Stuff from tonight

So, last night the weather forecast called for 6-10" of snow. We had a church meeting - one I'd thought of as being important - scheduled for tonight, but with all that snow? I was thinking of postponing the meeting last night, but I waited until this morning to make the decision. This morning the National Weather Service was staying with that forecast - oh, yeah, 20 mph winds gusting to 35 - so the decision was made. We postponed. I rescheduled a medical appointment.

Then reality intervened - the reality that forecasting winter weather in the Midwest is devilishly hard. All it takes is a very small change in the atmospheric conditions, and by this evening one would wonder why we messed around with our scghedule. It's the Midwest! Don't like the weather? Wait a minute.

We went to a movie - Life of Pi. Good flick. I found the visuals to be stunning, and a lot of them were things I'd seen. In the Navy I was a destroyer sailor. The movie showed a scene in which a school of dolphins was leaping on the surface. I've seen that. There were scenes in which you see stars at night, then realize that we're not looking up into the sky, but down into the water. The points of light are reflections of the stars. I've seen that. You haven't experienced darkness unless you've been on a ship in the ocean, in darken ship conditions under a new moon. Yes, the stars do give off light.

I've heard that people can be divided into mountain people and ocean people. As much as I love mountains, I'm an ocean person.

The spiritual theme is clear and unmistakeable. Pi as a youngster grows up as a Hindu, then goes through a Christian phase and a Muslim phase. Noah had his arc, and after the shipwreck Pi has his little assortment of animals on his boat. (Hyenas do not play well with others, but trust me: if you have a Bengal tiger on board, you don't have a hyena problem.) The Israelites had Moses and forty years in the wilderness. Pi's wilderness is the ocean. They had manna, and God intervened when hope seemed lost. Pi had an island that they landed at.

Great movie. It gave the adults food for thought, and our 11-year-old granddaughter was able to follow it, and wants to see it again (I'm sure she would have missed the religious allusions.)

Thanks for hanging out. Love that we're sharing parts of the journey.