I was preoccupied following the weekend of April 24, Saturday through Monday.
I've been estranged from my father for a number of years. When I started blogging in the local newspaper, I decided I didn't want to say nasty things about people, and I don't like having family skeletons revealed in the media.
It's been a painful separation, and I have always remained hopeful that we might reconcile. At the same time I know that it's unlikely. We are both “mercurial,” and I have a long memory.
Ever since I was a little kid, I have had a fear of tornadoes. I remember being a pre-schooler, getting out of bed and stealing graham crackers from the kitchen when I had nightmares about them. When I was 8 years old, my parents moved to Mississippi where tornadoes are a frequent occurrence. I must have spent several days of my life cowering in school hallways.
Even after Mississippi, I've had some tornado experiences. I've been fascinated by the skies over communities where tornadoes would soon strike. In Bloomer, Wisconsin, I saw the sky turn gold one evening. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the sky turned emerald green, like something out of The Wizard of Oz. (As a naturalist I've learned that these natural phenomena bode ill for our future.)
So on Saturday, April 24 there was this big tornado in Mississippi. After reports of a storm I usually try to see where the tornado was in relation to my family members. I went onto the website of the Clarion-Ledger, also owned by Gannett so the website is a spooky clone of the Des Moines Register's, and clicked onto the second page of an article about the storm... and there's a photo of my dad's neighborhood, destroyed.
I emailed Mom (my parents are now divorced) but got no response. Turned out she and my brother and gone to the Gulf Coast for an unsuccessful fishing expedition. They had missed the storm. I got an email the next day, and they didn't know anything.
Later, on Sunday my brother managed to find a Warren County deputy who had a little info. But our father was still missing.
My father's subdivision is built around a lake, so it's not linear, and the house numbers circle around the lake. According to the deputy, everything up through the 200s had been destroyed. Our dad's house was in the 400s. The big storm passed just a few hundred yards away. The wind was so bad that it stripped the bark off the trees, about 170 mph.
Monday Eric did find our father. He was okay.
I would have hated to have my dad killed in a storm like that. A big one like that, the noise would have been incredible and a terrifying experience to endure.
That day I emailed my rector to tell her that my father had been found and was fortunate to still have his house. She said we should offer prayers of thanksgiving. And that set me to thinking about God.
One of the most-reported stories came slightly from north of where my father lives. There was a man that afternoon in a Baptist church. The man had taken shelter in the kitchen, and for some reason he decided to move and hide under the communion table. After the tornado came through, the entire church had been destroyed and about the only large item left was the communion table. The man's survival was truly miraculous.
Another story was of a young girl who had been sucked up into the cloud. Reporters asked how she had survived, and she told them that she grabbed hold of a tree and rode it out. Eventually the tree was thrown out of the cyclone. Another miracle.
I don't know these two people, but it seems to me that if God spared them, we should ask why God didn't spare the twelve who died. Were they unworthy in some way? (Some readers of the Mississippi newspaper said God had punished Mississippi for the upcoming prom for gay high school students. Others attributed it to God's wrath for Mississippi's intolerance to the GLBT community.)
My father is not a particularly religious person. I have no memories of him ever being in church except for the rare wedding or funeral. So why did the tornado stop just short of his house? The uncharitable thought has occurred to me that my father is too ornery to be sucked up by a tornado.
So back to the question of thanksgiving and God's role in the tornado.
Should I give thanks to God for creating the Earth and letting it progress along, without intervention? I guess this is the closest to saying it was the result of meteorological factors. (You could even say that there is no god which plays a role in the events on Earth.)
Should it be thanks to God for sparing an arbitrary few?
Is it thanks to God for saving the righteous?
Is it thanks to God for saving those who are prayed for (and should I assume that my prayers are more powerful or more agreeable to God than others)? If so, should I start praying that the University of Alabama win another national football championship this year?
Or thanks to God for having a plan which we cannot know?
Just a few questions after the tornado.
