By Mark Bauer/editor-in-chief
The weather radar on the computer showed only green over my location in Hurst, but the red was getting closer and soon the purple would be on top of us. “Good,” I thought to myself, “I can get out to my car before the heavy stuff hits.”
I saved my unfinished Word documents, shut down the computer, rounded up Gary, my managing editor, and headed outside. Soon, we were able to confirm what the radar had reported a few moments ago—a light drizzle.
We parted ways, Gary heading west toward the storm (lucky!) and me going southeast. I tried to outrun it; I didn’t.
The lightning was crazy; crazier than I had seen in quite some time. But it’s difficult to watch when driving, so I pulled off the highway, hopped into a Subway for a turkey sandwich and watched the electric storm from the comfort of my Jeep. Hey, when you’re a college kid, all forms of free entertainment are a GO.
In this moment I felt the weight of something. My turkey sandwich being digested, perhaps? Bad mayo? I knew those black olives didn’t look right.
I’m a skeptic by nature. I’m also one of the most positive people you will ever meet. Don’t ask me how those two mix because I’m not sure—I just know I’m one jacked up hybrid. I question everything—that’s probably why journalism and I get along so well—from people’s motives to the very existence of God at times (I know, … how in the world is a Christian able to say such things?).
But tonight I had no questions, only awe. The sweet, refreshing smell of the air from the spring rains; the coolness of the wind against my touch; the lights in the atmosphere orchestrated to the beat of a heavenly drum—all testified to the glory of a God powerful enough to speak it into existence.
We can debate semantics. We can look up the cause of lightning: how it is created and how the static charge in the atmosphere produces the show.
But that’s only part of the answer. We might as well attempt to explain love by trying to understand the chemical reactions in our brain. While it might sustain the “how,” it inexplicably fails to answer the “why.” And the “why” is by far the most important question of them all.
Science can answer who, what, when and where … but why?
Well, for some, that has yet to be discovered. But in my mind, in this moment, there is no question.
