Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

NATURE! . . .

Without asking, or warning, she snatches us up into her circling dance, and whirls us on until we are tired, and drop from her arms. . . .

We live in her midst and know her not. She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her. . . .

She is always building up and destroying; but her workshop is inaccessible. . . .

She changes for ever and ever, and rests not a moment. Quietude is inconceivable to her, and she has laid her curse upon rest. She is firm. Her steps are measured, her exceptions rare, her laws unchangeable.

She has always thought and always thinks; though not as a man, but as Nature.  She broods over an all-comprehending idea, which no searching can find out.

Goethe was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, philosopher, painter, scientist, and civil servant.  These words were not written with tornados in mind, but they seem apropos as I follow the news coverage of the appalling damage done by a tornado earlier tonight to the town I was born in.

Joplin (MO) High School after it was 
struck by a tornado on May 22, 2011