I think I’m susceptible to a natural tendency to see the world as perfectly ordered. Here have been a couple of surprises.
- My wife and I built a home in the upper Avenues of Salt Lake City expressly to have a view of the Great Salt Lake. What can be more perfect than a lake that has been there for at least 77, 000 (counting being part of Lake Bonneville) years? Over the nineteen years of living there, my wife would comment that it looks like the lake is getting smaller. “No, it just seems that way,” I would say. “This is the eighth largest terminal lake in the world. Lakes that size don’t shrink.” Then last week, the Salt Lake Tribune had an article citing experts who have been studying the lake for decades. Their report: the Great Salt Lake is drying up, it’s dead. “How can that possibly be? I show up and the lake dries up? No.” Then I hear my wife’s voice in the background, “ Roger, please, get used to it, the lake is drying up.”
. - A little over a year ago, we heard over the local newscast that hurricane strength winds will be felt in parts of Utah. Then came a rumbling, like a train. It was like it went right through our bedroom. And it continued for the next thirty minutes plus. We were in one of the places hit by the hurricane winds. We called our children, who live twenty minutes away, and asked them if they felt the winds? “Nope.” Evidently, our downtown neighborhood was the only place in Utah that felt the winds. It uprooted dozens of large trees, which blocked access to streets, and in some cases fell on top of homes and cars resulting in significant damage. “We were the only place the hurricane hit?” I asked myself out loud. “No freaking way. We’re the ONLY place it hit? We DO NOT EVEN have an OCEAN nearby.” Then my wife said, “Roger, stop complaining. And would you please get out of bed.” Evidently, polar winds coming down from the Arctic Circle will be occurring more frequently due to warmer waters caused by the rise in temperatures. Great, now I can look out over a drying up lake bed of sand, while I wait for the next hurricane wind storm to hit. And this was the perfect place to build a home.
My newly formed philosophy: the world isn’t as perfect as I led myself to believe.