Towns shouldn't be able to be erased. They should stay where they are, with squares and restaurants and festivals and people who sit by the county square and watch the world go by. They don't have to remain as we remember them from our childhoods, but they should at least be able to continue to exist.
Last night, West Liberty, KY was apparently destroyed by a tornado. I don't know how many people were killed there, but I know that every life there was affected. Even those who escaped physically unharmed will never again hear the rumble of thunder the same way.
Just a few miles down the road, boats were tossed like toys of the gods in a local marina. Several houses were crushed by the power of the storm. As far as I know, no one was killed, but again, every life was altered.
It's eerily similar to last April 27, when storms of a similar magnitude cut a swath of damage across the southeast. Tuscaloosa, Ringgold, Apison and many other towns were just devastated.
Last night, we spent the night on a futon in the basement. It was uncomfortable, but it was safe. At least, as safe as is possible on a night like that. We didn't know what terror the skies held, and every now and again we'd hear the wind rattle the house and the hail pop upon the air conditioner and we'd wonder if that was it or merely a sign of things to come. Caleb was fast asleep in his crib, unaware of the storms brewing in the skies above, confident in his parents to provide safe-keeping for him, unknowing that our powers are so limited against winds that threaten to uproot even the strongest trees.
In all of this, I wonder about the God who spoke out of the whirlwind to Job. Before God speaks, Elihu is exalting God before Job. He says, Surely God is great, and we do not know him; the number of his years is unsearchable. For he draws up the drops of water; he distills his mist in rain, which the skies pour down and drop upon mortals abundantly. Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion? (Job 36:26-9)
Following Elihu, God speaks from the whirlwind.
I cannot help but wonder what this whirlwind means for us today. I do not believe, as some may, that storms and chaos are indicators of God's displeasure to us. I do not believe that God punishes us for sin by smashing boats around in a marina. I do not believe that God causes such storms, or that God leads them into certain areas and away from others. I believe that such storms happen, that they have been happening as long as this earth has been here, and that God permits them to happen as part of the weather patterns of the world. I don't think a tornado serves as some sort of test, but I do believe that God weeps for the sadness of loss suffered by each human, by each community, and I believe that God expects his children to respond to such a storm in a way befitting the selfless service of Christ our King.
I believe the church, the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in the world, a 'colony of heaven in a country of death', as Eugene Peterson describes it, should rise up and meet the aftereffects of the whirlwind with the same passion and energy that the storm created. I don't pretend to know exactly how Christ would have responded to such a storm, but I do believe that Christ would have expected me to respond with charity, with selflessness, with love. I do not go forth to explain the storm or to understand the whys and hows, but I do go forward to offer hope and love to those affected.
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