powerful things

This is a day for memories.

Like the morning I witnessed the test firing of the Atlas rocket. Dad and Sonny and I stood on a hill a mile from the blockhouse at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. The rocket was clamped to a tower. The noise, oh, the noise! Dad was standing right next to me, yelling in my ear. I could see his mouth move, but I couldn't hear or understand anything he said. It was much worse than the earthquake a couple of years before that shook us out of our beds. The test-firing didn't last long but it was long enough to convince me that the rocket was the most powerful thing on earth.

I was about ten years old one evening when Dad and I stood in the backyard in Birmingham, watching a tornado form in the southwestern sky. He said a tornado sounds like a train. As we stood there I couldn't imagine how a train whistle could sound like a storm. But that's not what he meant. That rumbly, deep, growly, angry-bear sound, that's what he meant. We would have stayed out longer but Mother got nervous and made us come into the basement. The tornado hit Hall's Chapel. Next day I looked at pictures of the devastation in the news. I thought a tornado must be the most powerful thing on earth.

Or the day I walked out of the courthouse, divorce papers in hand. I could have stayed in the relationship, but after seven years the tears far outweighed the laughter. I had once considered young love the most powerful thing on earth. But that day, right then, the most powerful thing on earth, for me, was the right to choose.

Priorities change with circumstance. And so do my opinions. And that’s ok. Through this journey of life, I’ve learned that the most powerful force is not the Army, or prison walls. It’s not love, young or any other kind. Not death, not grief. Not rockets, not tornadoes, not earthquakes. It’s neither indifference nor forgiveness. And it’s not memory, mine or anybody else’s. It’s not even, as I once thought, freedom of choice. Today I know that the most powerful thing on earth is unconditional love.