April 27, 2011 wasn’t a great day for Alabama for any of the south for that matter. Widespread destruction was everywhere from suburban neighborhoods to age-old churches in metropolitan centers. On that day my own mortality was closer than ever when an old tree was uprooted and toppled just a few yards from my bedroom. I survived that day unscathed while fragments of a tornado more than 60 miles away was landing at my feet.
Many people lost their lives and their belongings that day, just as they did in Joplin, Gulfport, New Orleans and across the globe in other natural disasters that spared those I know and love.
Yesterday I went on a road trip and while on a quick detour, I was taken to a place that the news cameras never focused on. Drive about a mile down a county road in the small town called Blountsville, Alabama and you will find yourself overcome with the gravity and scope of that day in April of last year.
Get out of the car and look around and you will be surrounded by acre after acre of the pure strength and destructive power of nature.
It’s easy to be overcome by such a sight and to relive the helpless of that day, but that wasn’t the sense that came over me yesterday.
Instead I was reminded that sometimes we have to get out of the way and let nature take care of itself. Despite the thousands of trees that have been felled and left, nature will take care of it.
Those trees will become shelter and food for a variety of creatures, slowly rebuilding the ecosystem that once thrived among the tall timber. Those trees will eventually break down and rot away into compost that will feed and build the soil, giving way to the new saplings that will emerge.
Nature will take care of itself. All we have to do is get out of the way long enough.
[...] a recent day trip a few hours from home that was mentioned on Day 16, I was taken to an out-of-the-way part of an out-of-the-way town in Alabama. The primary purpose of [...]