Faith Matters - Arms Length
It is an invitation that we have not been able to refuse. Against our wishes, we have had the short course in hurricane meteorology. We have listened to the Weather Channel teachers explain to us, practically on an hourly basis, the formidable sequence from tropical depression to powerful hurricane. We have watched as swirling masses of wind and water made their appearance on stage in locales we normally associate with five star resorts and luxury cruises. As spectators at any disaster, we have craned our necks to get a better view of nature at the extremes. We have been reminded of what it feels like to stand helpless before forces over which we have no control, forces over which our power to intervene is limited to celestial petition.
Many of us have not been disinterested spectators. We have family and friends who are as helpless as we are, but with the added burden of having homes in the line of wind, wave, high tide, and storm surge. They are bewildered as friendly seas turn enemy. We have friends and colleagues in Cuba and Haiti where resources for recovery are practically nonexistent. By imagination we have waited through the night in basement or bathroom as winds dismantle the feckless shelters we have constructed to protect us.
Heeding the evacuation warnings, the prudent escape to find a new community of the dislocated in gymnasiums and fellowship halls. Emergency workers shoulder the load for the rest of us. Horror grips us as nature’s fury further devastates some of the poorest of the poor in our hemisphere. Those who merit nature’s caress receive a backhand instead. Our sighs and groans carry our prayers for mercy; our checks carry our unwillingness to allow nature the last word.
It is a season to store in memory, filed beside the other storms we know by name and heart, floods to which we have added the water of our own tears. Nature makes the rules in a game in which we are required to have a seat on the sidelines. When the winds and waves have had their say, we move back on stage and begin to act upon the most fundamental of human urges: rebuild. Nature at its worst is an unintended catalyst for community.
A few years ago, we were introduced to a hurricane named Hugo. Wind and wave wrought havoc on coastal South Carolina. Traveling through the area several months after the devastation, I heard the then governor, Carroll Campbell, recount the tale of his people’s trial by wind and water in his state-of-the-state address. He remembered touring the flood area by helicopter. Many homes were under water. At one point, they noticed someone waving at them. A group of men, women, and children were clinging to a rooftop, desperately waving their arms.
The governor and his aides stopped and offered help. After the rescue, the people told an incredible tale of the previous night. As ocean waters began to invade, they were forced from their homes, taking refuge in a schoolhouse. When the water reached the school, they were cut off from escape. The waters continued to rise within the school and they had no choice but to get to the second floor. When the water reached them, they pulled desks to the center of the room and climbed upon them, getting above the water as best they could. The water continued to rise and, with no other choice, the adults took their children and lifted them above their heads. They held those children at arm’s length to keep them above the waters. Mercifully, the water receded; tragedy was averted.
Governor Campbell said that the adults in the school that night were fully prepared to die in order to save their children. He told the story of those brave South Carolina citizens to honor their courage and determination.
The opening line of the Reformation Hymn sings within us as waters rise and winds dismantle. Luther affirms that God is a strong fortress, a reliable bulwark, a helper “amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing." Mortal ills wear many costumes, natural and human. Mortal ills create their own realities. Mortal ills do not submit to reason or justice. Mortal ills are generally invisible to NOAA warnings and Doppler radar.
The tale of the South Carolina schoolhouse comes visiting in this season of hurricane, mortal ills delivered by wind and water. In mind’s eye we see parents on desktop, surrounded by a rising Atlantic, holding their children at arm’s length above their heads, refusing to surrender what is most precious to a remorseless nature.
One person holding another at arm’s length above the rising tide is an appropriate icon for the family we claim by adoption. It embodies a determination that others will not face the destructive powers, the mortal ills, alone. It is an icon which demonstrates an active compassion for the vulnerable, and it acknowledges that we are willing to pay some of the bill for each another, our bill already paid in full.
It is an icon with deep roots in our family, an icon that has the ability to transport us to another time and place, when someone with arms fully extended interposed himself for us, lifting humankind above the flood of mortal ills, making the way of the cross to be the way of life.
Because we know the blessed grace of surviving the storm surge, we pray for the grace to offer ourselves for others, so they will not have to face the rising tides alone.
God’s peace.
Chuck Johns