Mowing in Thunder
We've had a week of rain here, which was a nice summer break from the usual constant summer lawn watering and the consistent dry conditions of a high plains desert. Just last night more than an inch of rain fell according to our rain gauge during a sometimes impressive display of celestial pyrotechnics. This morning, everything is green and some trees and smaller shrubs are weighted down with accumulated moisture. We were gone for part of the week, but according to weather.com, it rained at least some every day for eight straight days—a month's worth of precipitation.
By last Saturday, we were home, and the grass was getting long. I went out to mow under threatening clouds and was about half done with the lawn when the darkened clouds began shedding their water along with earth-bound thunder and lightening. I didn't care about the rain, but I did wonder about the safety of mowing grass in a thunderstorm, and it reminded me of something that happened several years ago. We were in Virginia at the time, and I was mowing a lawn when a significant rain began, again with flourish of thunder and lightening. A similar question came to mind: "How stupid was it for me to be mowing the lawn in a thunderstorm?"
At the time, we had lived in the same house for many years, next door to a wonderful neighbor family which had moved in at the same time we had. In my mind, the husband was the neighborhood expert on all things related to well-groomed lawns and mechanical processes or machines. He also was mowing his lawn in the same storm, and I remember thinking to myself: "As long he's out there mowing in the storm, it must be safe, because he understands all this stuff." Both of us stubbornly finished our lawns without harm to grass or human.
Several days later, I happened to visit with the same neighbor, and the storm and mowing the grass came up. I mentioned that I had determined to stay out there during the storm as long as he did because I knew he would know when risks outweighed benefits. His response was quick: He said that he had determined the same thing: he would stay out as long as I did. I could only chuckle as the lesson of the experience was impressed permanently (at least so far) on my mind: We have a significant impact, whether we like it or not or whether we are aware of it or not, on the behavior of others. Thus, all talk of "doing my own thing" or "it doesn't matter to anyone else what I do" or "I can do what I want" or even obsessive concern with one's own rights all smacks of selfishness, with potentially destructive impact on the lives of all around us and accumulatively on the world's societies and environments. Perhaps, choosing our thoughts and behaviors should be considered in a greater context than what do I want to do or what will benefit me or what can I do. Maybe the question should be "In this situation, what can I do to improve the lot of my fellow man." Christ's apostle Paul wrote a like challenge to the Philippians: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."
It all comes to light with a slight twist of context of oft-cited John Donne words: "No man is an island… ." We do have a direct influence for good or bad on all around us, and in the words of that intellectual visionary Buzz Lightyear that influence may well extend "to infinity … and beyond!"
