Bowling in the rain

When I was a kid, like most I guess, I used to imagine that thunder was just God bowling. The lighter the sound, I assumed, the less pins he would hit. The loud ones were, of course, strikes.

And then there was the theory that rain was God crying, which was why it rained at funerals. I don't think I had a theory about lightening, but something tells me I made a baseball connection to the flash of light and the cracking of a ball against a wooden bat.

This memory came back to me today at church. It wasn't because of the readings or the priest's homily. It was because of the weather. Toward the end of mass, it started raining quite heavily. It's been raining most of the weekend, so the wetness itself did not surprise me. Frederic's little league practice game was canceled (although many of the coaches wanted to play in the rain up until the point when lightening struck), we haven't been able to move dirt that needs to go from our failed garden to a hole in the ground where our new shed is going to be built this week, and we are constantly running from shelter to shelter to keep dry. It was the roar of the thunder itself that startled me. It shook most of the people around us too.

I shook my head and looked down at Frederic, who was at my right. He smiled at me and shook his head too. I've never once said anything to him, or others for that matter, about my childhood God theories.

"God's bowling," Frederic whispered. "He just got a strike."