Boom, I would sit paralyzed as a child, as I was taught to do, whenever it thundered, wondering what I had done that day that was so egregious, that God was talking to me in the form of thunder. However, my non-religious neighbors, would continue to watch television. Their houses contained electrical grounding so they were not concerned about being being struck by lightning!Subject: How Come God Does Not Thunder Anymore?
I was raised, as a child in the Midwest. Most of our parents, in an industrial town just south of Cleveland Ohio, migrated to Akron Ohio, right after WWII. What they were looking for was a better life. And the chance to work in the Rubber industry provided many of them with just that.
And along with a desire for a better life for themselves and their children, they brought along with them a hard work ethic and many of the religious beliefs that were a part of the cultural ethos of the South. Some actually came from the Bible Belt, my parents hailed from Georgia and Jim Crow Mississippi
One of the odd religious teachings that became a part of my socialization process and cultural ethos was this: I was taught that whenever it thundered (usually accompanied by lightning), that I, along with my 2 brothers were to turn off any electrical devices (like the TV or Radio), go and sit down, usually on the floor, and to be quiet.
Why? Because GOD was talking. Now this practice was not unique to my family, for many families that I knew of or were associated with, their siblings were taught to do the same thing.
Man, even today, I must admit that I would prefer to live in an Earthquake zone, than to have to go through those ranting, raving and thunderous electrical storms. Sometimes the sound of thunder was so loud, that you knew that someone’s house on the next street was just blown off of the map.
BOOM, it would resound, and then the accompanying lightning would crackle and result in light filling up the entire house where we were sitting. On occasion there was thunder, that was not accompanied with rain, even though the rain would usually catch up shortly afterward.
Sometimes the thunder would play tricks on you and wait until you were in bed and sound asleep, and then BOOM! You would be shocked out of your sleep state by the loudest noises that you ever heard in your life, it was as if you were living in a warzone. The decibel levels were incredible. Boom, then everything would light up around you around you.
Well, I endured the thunder and thunderstorms until I was 21 years of age. For then I decided to relocate to the libidinous and sinful city San Francisco by the Bay. I didn't notice it at first, but after living in the East Bay for a while, El Cerrito to be exact, something occurred to me one day. I thought, what happened to the sounds of thunder? I hadn’t heard any thunder for quite a while after landing at San Francisco Airport.
The rainy season in Northern California usually takes place in the winter, except during periods of drought of course, and instead of snow coming down from the sky, like I was accustomed to in the Mid West, it would rain and rain and rain, days without end it would seem.
Let me back up, for don’t get me wrong it snows in San Francisco, on the Peninsula and in the South Bay, however, because we live at sea level, the snow rarely descends to ground level - even when you can see it on the mountaintops. But what was so strange about those prodigious and prolonged winter rainstorms in the Bay Area was, you never heard any thunder – not even during El Niño.
One day when it did thunder in the Bay Area, The Examiner, The Mercury News and other newspapers in the area covered the story. In fact, Thunder, became the headline. Most of us were at work in the City of San Francisco when we heard Thunder. We all stopped working, wondering, what, what, what, some falling over each other trying to get to the windows in high rises, as if they could see the thunder.?
Then I thought about it afterwards. Doesn't God talk in San Francisco? My God, my little hometown had its share of sin, sinnersand debauchery, but nothing like in San Francisco. Akron doesn't have groups like COYOTE or the Sisters of Perpetual Motion ... I thought, and yet God never thunders/speakers out loud in San Francisco.
Well of course, I knew better, before leaving Akron that God was not likely using Thunder for his vocal chords. Nonetheless, I thought about the severity of the teaching about God that we received as children.
And the thunder story was just as an example of the kind of teaching that not only Akronites received, it was the kind of teaching that most religious individuals have received from religious institutions, teachers and sacred texts throughout human history. In fact, we have spent so many years of lives, generation after generations focusing on non-sense, that for too many years the majority of us never thought to seek after what was real. We have become accustomed to living our lives in fear of an angry God!
And why didn't we? We were afraid to, having been taught the Canon was real, everything the preacher said was real, funny little superstitions were real ...How much of what we have been taught by religious teachers and from religious text, are just as ridiculous as what we were taught about God talking through the thunder during rainstorms. What happened to Elijah's, 'still small voice', as opposed to God speaking in the wind, fire ...?
I suspect that (IT) has been speaking, when just as what we refer to as 'radio waves, were in the atmosphere for so long a time, and Marconi discovered and subsequently provided us with radio technology. What we refer to God has been speaking all the time all the time. Sadly, however, we had been so caught up superstitions and superstitious teachings that have thrived and been passed along to us, that we cannot hear what we call God speaking to us via the cosmos.
See just as the radio waves were present, long before Marconi was on the Earth, what we call God was apparently there too, however, we simply did not know what it was.
BOOM, an airplane was just knocked out of the sky. Why? Because God was mad at everyone on the plane of course. Oops!
I'm not finished ...!
Solomon
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