I am writing this as Hurricane Rita prepares to slam into the Texas gulf coast. My goodness, in all my life I have never seen a hurricane season like this year. Week after week those of us in the safe mid-west have stood by and watched as storm after storm has taken its toll on lives all along the Gulf and mid-Atlantic coasts. Bringing this closer for me is the fact that Cheryl and I have visited both the Florida panhandle and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina this year. Both areas are prone to hurricane damage and have seen high winds and waves over the past few weeks. And now, we wait for Rita. By the time you read this we will probably know the exact place where Rita will make landfall and have seen the early damage reports.
We are isolated from the hurricanes here in Iowa. Yet, we have our own storms and many who live along the coasts would never want to deal with our tornadoes and cold winter season. Funny how what we have grown up with feels more manageable than what for us is unknown. To be afraid of the unknown is a human response to the world around us. This fear is as old as humanity. I imagine Adam and Eve’s fear as they start a new life outside the garden.
There is no place in the church for fear. Our faith leads us to hope in what we cannot see and to have faith in the eternal love and grace of our God. Storms will come and go to be sure. And yet, this is not a place where storms will wreak havoc on our souls. I see the storms in your life. Some of these storms are only brewing on the horizon, some are gaining strength and we prepare to withstand the impact, while others have made landfall and are raising issues and causing us to rethink our lives. Consider the storms in your life. Consider the calm in God’s presence, as if you were the eye of a hurricane. I encourage you to live without fear, knowing the love of God will stand all tests and all storms life can send our way.
See you Sunday, Rev. Dave Weesner
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In reading this I am reminded of the time the tornado came through our farm. We had just gotten home from a grocery shopping trip to a larger town near us. It was dark outside. Back in the time when we had party lines in the country, my dad picked up the phone to see what was going on. All of a sudden he yelled at us to get to the basement. A neighbor had been on the phone and had the tornado go through their place. We got to the basement safely staying in the SW corner as we had been taught. My dad stayed up on the landing and held the door shut. The tornado took things we weren’t using. We had just built a new barn. The old barn was destroyed except for the pen holding the steer we were fattening. My dad went out thinking he would have to butcher the steer, but he was unharmed. Pieces of the barn were scattered everywhere. We picked up as good as we could, and I learned to use a hammer very well by pounding out the nails from the boards—the old square kind, but years afterward I was forever stepping on a board with nails in it and having to go to the doctor to get a tetanus shot. Then there was the oak tree with a piece of straw lodged in the side. The TV antenna on our old house bent beyond use. It was taller than our current antenna and would have been useful for picking up distant stations, but we weren’t using it at the time. Our old house had the door blown in and a hole punched in the side of the attic.
We had very little warning, unlike those in the path of the hurricane, of the approach of the tornado. I just remember a feeling of excitement, not really fear. Much later in life working at a camp on a stormy afternoon watching the sky for any signs of activity, seeing tails forming above us which would come down miles farther and damage a school. But it was summer and no one was at school.
Storms in my life don’t usually cause fear--sometimes excitement like the night of the tornado, sometimes sadness. Fear is reserved for things like thinking about starting a relationship with someone who is actually available, having people play “games” with me on the highway—more people oriented than nature caused. But I guess I grew up with the sense of being protected.
Sometimes there is a fine line between fear and excitement. Storms are imagery for turbulant times in our lives when we struggle with the forces around us. They say stress is good, just not too much. Maybe storms are the same.
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