When Happy and Horrified Are Neighbors

Tornado season is already kicking in furiously in the Southern states. The crazy temperature spikes in California remind me of the crazy polar vortex much of the country endured last winter. Temperature is nothing compared to having your home obliterated.

Until we get the dreaded “Big One,” folks in Southern California will continue to bask, or sweat, while other citizens get walloped. Southern Cal’s turn will come though.

How oddly life goes on while others suffer.

It happens on a personal level as well. I’ll never forget how one night years ago Kim and I were enjoying our supper until a guy in the apartment buildings next door started wailing in grief at how someone he loved had committed suicide.

Paradise lives next to Purgatory. Happy and Horrified Are Neighbors. And they trade places.

I encourage you to always be aware of that. Because you’ll always know someone on the other side. And you’ll switch between each side yourself.

When we’re aware of all this, we’ll be less complacent when times are comfortable and less traumatized when times are hard. We will hopefully gain an eternal perspective that in God’s eyes the two aren’t all that far apart from each other.

In the scary world we live in, wisdom can be the best insurance.

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photo credit:  creativecommons.org