It's Raining Cats and Apples

The same issue of Time Magazine that told of fifteen pounds of frozen pork finding its way onto a fellow’s Ft. Lauderdale roof in mid-July (See When Pigs Flew) also noted:

Rush-hour motorists were alarmed when it began raining apples over a main road in Coventry, England, in 2011.                                                                                                           

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen it raining apples, though we’ve all seen it raining cats and dogs so often that it's become cliché, and we’re exhorted by the guardians of the language to euthanize the expression.  In fact, here's the message that the retired English teacher who monitors my laptop sent me the moment I typed the words raining cats and dogs, which she underlined in green.

The marked word or phrase may be overused or unnecessary to the meaning of your sentence. For a more forceful and convincing sentence, consider replacing or shortening the word or phrase.

Thank you, Mrs. Hughes. If I had known you would have to keep working into your eighties, I might have been a bit more respectful in high school. Perhaps you’ll allow this shortened version:                

We’ve all seen it raining cats.

Okay. That worked.  No objections from Mrs. Hughes.                                                                                She’s the one, by the way, who couldn’t help but notice that one of her most promising students, Donna Kilmer, Secretary of the Lyman High School chapter of the National Honor Society, and voted Best-All-Around by her classmates, was fraternizing with one of Mrs. Hughes' least promising students, voted Most Likely to be Mauled by a Bear. She took Donna aside and tried to tell her, tactfully, that she could do better.  I remember the day distinctly; it was raining Calicoes. Thankfully for me, Donna did not act on our teacher’s wise counsel. Excuse me. My laptop is sending me another message:

Your story seems to lack direction. Some paragraphs are unnecessary to advance your theme, assuming you have a theme. Consider shortening, or better yet, abandoning your effort altogether.

Yes, Mrs. Hughes, I know I’m rambling. You have to understand, that’s the nature of these Wry Bread stories.  They ramble around, losing a reader or two with each paragraph, until they climax with a spiritual truth which is only read by the few---the proud---the retired English teachers.

I believe I was making this point, some things that happen are difficult to explain.  British drivers were no doubt shocked to find it raining apples one rush hour.  As you may know, it's hard enough for them to drive under normal circumstances; it demands their complete concentration every time they "man the steering mechanism," to remember to drive on the wrong side of the road.  On this particular day, with apples falling from the sky, no doubt panic and confusion rained---er---reined.

“Mrs. Hughes? Aren’t you supposed to auto-correct these things?  I don’t recall giving you a rest room pass.” 

The correct word is reigned, Mr. Sukhia.  Panic and confusion ruled the day.  If you had spent more time in school focused on academics and less time trying to make your friends laugh, you would know that.  And for your information, I don't require a rest room pass from you.

Yes Ma'am. If it's all the same to you, I'll get on with my story now. As I was saying, it was raining apples.

One driver, wearing a Mackintosh raincoat, was seen exiting his car to clean his windshield, only to be struck in the head by a Macintosh apple.  His last words were reportedly, "Bloody peculiar." (No, that was not in the Time article, but I have it on good authority that something like that might have happened.)  

The two or three intrepid readers who have ventured this far may be interested to hear that a chap later identified as Mr. Jonathan Smith of the nearby village of Dumpling in the Cider was operating a motorcycle that day when he was struck by what was determined to be a Jonathan apple.  His mother, who was riding in the motorcycle sidecar (affectionately known by her grandchildren as Granny Smith) was struck by a---wait for it----Calico cat.  Just kidding.  Granny Smith was struck by a----Gala apple.  Did I mention they were on their way to a gala?

Let's move it along, Mr. Sukhia. I suspect I'm your sole reader by now, and I have things to do.

Patience, please, I'm coming in for a landing. I can almost see the runway.  Wait---it’s littered with apples---or maybe those are cats. 

Time Magazine went on to provide a possible explanation of the apple drenching:

"The freak downpour was thought to be caused by a wind vortex over a nearby orchard."

The Auto Apple Affair brings to mind another unexpected special delivery sent by air.  After God, with a mighty hand, delivered His people from bondage in Egypt, they journeyed through a wilderness, and were in need of food. As they were traveling, there was clearly no time to plant and harvest crops, and to slay and eat the flocks they were bringing to the Land of Promise would be counter-productive and wasteful, ice chests and Tupperware™ being in short supply.  

God provided in a wondrous way, sending by night a mysterious bread-like substance that they could gather from around the camp in the morning.  They ground it, cooked or baked it, and it sustained them.  They called it manna, meaning, what is it?  Which, when you think of it, might be a good name for a wildebeest, or for Wry Bread, but probably not for a Calico, which tends to be easily recognized.  Did you know that almost all Calicoes are female? 

“The subject, Mr. Sukhia.”

I’m sorry.  

You would think that having been so recently delivered from slavery----a deliverance for which their people had prayed for generations, and having just witnessed the miraculous signs God used to secure their redemption, the Israelites would be overwhelmed with gratitude, eating whatever the Lord provided with thanksgiving.  But the Scripture tells us in Numbers 11, they grew tired of open-air restaurant with only one item on the menu, and “yielded to craving.”

Who will give us meat to eat?  We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions , and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!   

They remembered the occasional visit to the Goshen Golden Corral, but conveniently forgot about the forced labor, whips and chains.  The Lord told Moses to tell the people that God had heard their lament, and that He would indeed give them meat to eat.

You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, “Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?”

Moses wondered how this could be, there being 600,000 men on the Exodus, with their wives and children.

Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to provide enough for them?  Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to provide enough for them?

But the Lord sent a wind bringing quail, leaving them fluttering just a few feet above the ground all around the camp.  This brought rejoicing to the people, and as you can imagine, hours of entertainment to their Calicoes, but the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people, and

“…the Lord struck the people with a very great plague. So he (Moses) called the name of the place Graves of Craving”

The New Testament reminds us that

“…all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition…”            (I Corinthians 10:11)

If you are a believer in Christ, you’ve been miraculously delivered from bondage to a taskmaster more heartless than Pharaoh, whose intention was to keep you doing his bidding forever. Your redemption was purchased at the greatest imaginable price, requiring the death of Christ, the Passover Lamb provided for sinners.  He experienced the Father’s just wrath for sin, so that those of us who embrace Him by faith may experience the Father’s merciful forgiveness.  Because Jesus drank the cup of His Father’s wrath and was treated as a sinner---even as sin incarnate, and because He was gloriously raised from the grave, we can know that God’s wrath has been assuaged.  Christ’s grave was not a “Grave of Craving,” but the ultimate “Grave of Caring,” because He laid down His life for His sheep.

So when we turn back and look fondly at the behaviors in which we once engaged, focusing on the temporary pleasures while ignoring the very real bondage in which we were held, we dishonor Christ and His sacrifice, and follow in the path of our ungrateful ancestors.  If that is the case, it may rightly said of us, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. 

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience…fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind…But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2)

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