From June to September, I have a regular practice of checking the National Hurricane Center webpage to watch for storms. I’ve done this a few years now, and every time I see another hurricane coming, I find myself wondering: is this the one? Is this the holy storm that will hit us so hard that we’ll finally see the light? Katrina shone some light, made us see the wretchedness our society has papered over, made us see the poverty and contempt that creeps through our culture like a cancer. Then Katrina blew itself out and we looked away. So every time another alert goes up on the NHC website, I ask: will the wrath of a wronged, forsaken god finally come down on us? Will heaven finally stop pulling punches, truly lay us out, make us change?
And then I do this: I hope. I whisper, “Make it this one. Do it. Break us. Shatter our cities, open our eyes, make us see. Hit us. Hurt us.”
There’s a storm brewing; I hear there hasn’t been a storm like this since Gloria, or Bob, or the “Long Island Express.” This one is called Irene. It could tear up the whole coast, whack every city from Savannah to Boston, roll right into New York Harbor and hit that city as it has not been assailed in generations… no, not even ten years ago.
I was talking with my friend Jay, of whom I’ve written before. She lives in DC, and I said to her, “I’m glad you don’t live in New York.”
Saying this, I stopped. Jay’s not in New York, but Phoebe is; she’s an old flame of mine, I’d hate to see her hurt. And Jo, to whom I owe so much, is in Boston, which may suffer just as badly. In fact Irene is going to pass over every woman I’ve loved in the last five years.
Which made me wonder: do I only care if someone I’ve had a crush on is in danger? I actually have people all along that coast. Friends. Family. So many people I love in so many ways, from Atlanta north.
It hit me then: every single person in the storm-path is loved by someone.
If even one person dies, then someone’s heart will be broken.
I was ashamed then. I still am. Ashamed of quietly calling for a killer storm on everyone else, whispering prayers for divine judgment so long as they didn’t touch me or mine, not seeing or not caring that any deaths would rend someone as much as I would be rent if Jay or Jo or Phoebe or anyone else were hurt. Here I was, just months ago, saying how we are all connected. Here I was, just days ago, teaching myself to see everyone as people, so I can take the next step and love them as neighbors. And here I am today rooting for a city-breaking, world-changing storm to hit the next town over from my friends. I’ve drawn a circle around the people who matter to me and said, “Take the rest.”
We all do it, of course, not that it excuses me. Everyone has that circle, and beyond it we rarely raise a finger. Oh, sometimes we do, when a quake hits Haiti or a storm smashes New Orleans. But we don’t care enough to change the world’s ways — our ways — that put those people in the path of the storm to begin with. They are outside the circle.
But Christianity is about drawing one big circle around everyone ever created and saying, “This is who we care for. No one gets left out. No one is unloved.”
Hard, yeah. Likely impossible. But it’s written plain right there in the law: “Love your neighbor. Love the stranger. Love your enemy.” If we don’t… well, then, the man from Galilee won’t even want to know us.
Then I remember that the One I follow is mercy and forgiveness incarnate, and that we absolutely get points for trying.
Irene is not the wrath of the One. If there’s anything heavenly in this hurricane, it’s in the hope that people will help each other. Not just this week or this year but all the time, in advance and ever after.
And if there’s no such thing as god, then absolutely nothing changes. If there’s no one watching us, we’re still watching each other. If there’s no reward, then helping just for helping’s sake is all the more beautiful and selfless.
Hurricanes will come. They aren’t the wrath of a heaven too long ignored. There won’t be a god-storm that opens eyes. If I want eyes opened, then I have to speak up.
So.
What will it be? Will we turn away from each other? Will we leave each other in the lurch again, forever look the other way?
Or will we face this storm and all storms? Face it together? Together as a community, as a country, as one people? Shall we again disappoint, or shall we rise to meet our promise?
Take my hand. Make the circle. Bring everyone in.
The Generous Grasp 
Oh yes.
We have in our family lore the excruciating memory of a mother blurting out “why MY son? why couldn’t it have been someone ELSE’s son?” when the Army’s telegram came saying that their soldier had stepped on a landmine and lost a leg.
Understandable. Forgivable. (I have to forgive her, as I hope to be forgiven for all my own shameful blurtings-out.) Probably representative of what many people think but don’t say out loud, when something too dreadful happens too close to home. But still, so deeply wrong. It’s one of those internal stories that makes me wince and serves me as a “here’s how NOT to live” lesson.
Whatever it is, never ever ever wish it on someone else’s child. If whatever-it-is is preventable by human means, pray and work so that it never happens to ANYone’s child. If whatever-it-is comes via chance or force of nature, then bandage anyone who is bleeding, comfort anyone who is crying, wrap blankets around anyone who is shivering, never mind what side of which arbitrary line they are on. The only questions to ask are “what do you need?” and “what can I do to help?” What I can do will never be enough but it is what I can do. (Thanks for that reassurance that “we absolutely do get points for trying”, by the way!) It is what I trust I WILL do, given grace and strength and all that good stuff, when the crunch comes. The next crunch, that is.There is always a next crunch coming.
Turn always toward, never away… that’s central to the Example we are given to follow, yes?
Thanks.
Thank you for a great post.