While flying in to Chicago this morning, I was thinking about Horton Hears a Who, and how all of the Whos down in Whoville were shouting all in unison, "We are here! We are here! We are here!" so that their voices could be heard by the mean, old kangaroo, but their atmosphere wouldn't let the sound out, until Joe-Joe gave a shout that pushed the sound right out of the atmosphere. I love this movie for many reasons, but unrelated to those reasons is the fact that the earth has an atmosphere.

Watching a movie about space (perhaps Apollo 13?), the astronauts are concerned that if they do not hit the earth's atmosphere at just the right speed and angle, they could skip off of it into space and be lost forever... or, charge in too fast and be burned up before ever hitting land. I am grateful for this atmosphere that protects us from all sorts of flying debris in space, like meteors. We could be like the moon, pock-marked and plantless with no real barriers from what the universe has to fling at us. The earth's atmosphere is kind of like the Holy Spirit in this way. Or, it could be like the saying, "I'm rubber, you're glue - whatever bounces off me sticks to you."

Somewhere in this bit of thought is a poem that might say it more eloquently than this, but I have no flash drive (forgot it in Ohio), and I don't have time to work on it before eating. So maybe later tonight, when I don't feel like being social anymore. :)