A Very Small Thing

I want you to know right away, because I think it's important to say at the start, that what I'm going to tell you about is really a very small thing in light of what's happened in Joplin and other places that had tornadoes.  It's a very small thing indeed when you consider that people have lost their lives and their homes and all their possessions.  But small as it is in comparison to that, on any other day it would have been somewhat big news, so I decided to tell you anyway.

Sunday afternoon I was standing in my front parlor when a giant flash of lightning lit up the sky.  Immediately afterwards, there was a huge CRACK and then what sounded like a small explosion, and two minutes or so after that I heard the wail of a fire truck siren.  I grabbed my camera and drove in the direction of the siren.  One block north of me and two blocks west, I found the fire truck.  At my church.  Lightning had struck the church, but it didn't catch fire.

The lightning completely demolished the masonry cross atop the front parapet.

And sent big chunks of stone tumbling down the front steps of the church.

But left the rest of the parapet undamaged.

The force of the lightning sent pieces of stone into the side yard,

out into the streets to the south and east, and into the yard of a house halfway down the next block. 

We found pieces of the cross in the church's front yard.

And even though it's a very small thing, because no one was hurt and the church didn't catch fire or have interior damage, it still hurts my heart a little to see that broken cross in the grass.