A local person shot this tornado descending into Somerset, Kentucky
Last week, I wrote about Switchback playing in the town of Somerset, Kentucky. We performed a Mother’s Day show for the folks at the Cumberland Retirement Home. I was shocked to hear that the town was hit by a tornado this past Saturday. In the area, about 23 people lost their lives. Our friends who live in nearby Nancy missed the touchdown of the tornado by a few miles. Luckily for them, all they lost was power. We had been looking at a tree, not far from their home that was uprooted in the last storm. Our friend, Sally, was saying that the weather has become more violent in Southern Kentucky due to climate change. The violent weather is proving her correct.
When people say “live each day as if it were your last,” it takes such tragedies as a tornado to underscore that saying. The fleeting fragility of life. The truth is, today is your last day on earth until proven otherwise.
What matters the most in this world? That also is something that takes a tornado to lay out in plain view. Our health, that we are loved and that we love others back seem to be what ends up being the most important reasons for living.
And while this tornado was a random act, it is when people willingly, knowingly create senseless acts of tragedy that the idea of “live each day” becomes an ethical bellwether.
I cannot help but think that in the minds of some individuals the idea of an existence after this life is a fallacy. These are the people who are engrossed with getting ahead of others in life. And this isn’t just about financial gain, but getting ahead in power, fame or any other kind of false idol. The funny thing is that they are able to achieve that, too. Many of these achievements are done at the expense of others. It could be argued that the very tornado that hit Somerset, possibly induced by climatic change, is due to such thinking. These people live each day as if it were their last, too, but not altruistically. Not in the tenets of love unless it is self-love. Such people don’t have to be big actors on the world-stage, because such thinking doesn’t necessarily breed success. In fact, no success makes such people double down on that way of thinking, it seems. Those people are even more rabid about the “me, myself and I” world. We all have met them.
Which brings me to that tornado again. Someday, it is going to be your last day. When that comes, none of us really know. But live each day mindfully. Create kindness and fight for what is right for the least of us. If you do that as if it were your last day, you will be best prepared for that last day.
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