The Music In The storm

Have you ever started out to write one thing, and end up writing something completely different? This is one of those times. I started out with idea of telling you about a profound convergence I experienced of an intense summer storm, and an Eagles song. I went to You Tube to find the video so I could place it at the end of the piece, and that is when the song spoke.
I had been out with friends who dropped me off in the middle of an incredibly intense thunderstorm. A limb as big as my thigh splintered, and blew down as I stood on the porch fumbling for my key. The lightning was close. It struck the water tower across the street. I could smell ozone in the driving rain. Soaking wet I closed the door, and made my way to the bedroom I shared with my brother Tommy. Mom was out somewhere in the storm.
Another close crack of lightning took the power out for a second,the wind howled, and the rain roared on the old house's tin roof. Then I heard it. A chill of fear ran down my back, as the storm raged.. "Jesus is coming..Jesus is coming..Jesus is coming..." A tree crashed to the ground just outside the house.."Jesus is coming..Jesus is coming..Jesus is coming..." Terror!
I ran to the record player, and took the tone arm off the record, my heart hammering in my chest! Was he? Is this the end of the world? I was listening for the horn of Gaberial as my brother slumbered oblivious in the storm. The lightening took the power out, but there was finaly a gap between it, and the thunder. The storm was moving on. I sat alone in the evening gloom, shaking like a leaf. The rain faded to a drum roll on the tin,thunder grumbled in the distance.
The song my brother had on the stereo was The Eagles "The Last resort" from Hotel California. Tree hugger that I am it has long been a favorite. But what are the odds of the record getting stuck on that paticular line? And coupled with the intensity of the storm? You can easily see my connecting the two. The rapture in the midst of the storm! It took me awhile to shake off, and embrace the irony of coincidence. Oh, add one more to the mix. As I began writing this the History channel ran a program about the crucificion of Christ. There is a fifty percent chance of an afternoon storm in the forcast.
Ah the song. Waiting in the wings for it's chance to speak. And speak it does. Of man's continual search for, and destruction of, paradise on earth. At one time a continuous old growth forrest of vast perportions streched from the east coast to the Mississippi river. A sea of grasslands covered an area from the midwest to the plains. There were herds of buffalo so large they numbered in the thousands. We destroyed all of that in less than two hundred years. Pushed the Native Americans out of our way, and brought forth on this continent a new nation...
I won't attack or defend manifest destiny here. How many animals, and insects die or are pushed aside by the waters of a beaver's dam? Does this make beavers evil? More advanced civilations have been pushing aside their less advanced brothers, and dividing, and redividing this world for centuries. Don Henley gets to the heart of the matter better than I could here...
"There is no more new frontier..We have got to make it here."
Will we? Cue the music. Let the song speak to you now. It will make you cry.