Weathering
When the storm comes in
a bird sits on a limb in the
suddenly solidly still
humid air. I watch
weather radar, listening
to a child scream nearby–
is it joy or fear?
I raise a glass of ale
brought to me
all the way from London.
I read the storm
warnings with interest,
large hail; damaging winds . . .
Is this another storm
that I will weather?
Sometimes yes;
sometimes no;
prognosis: probable.
I raise a glass of ale
all the way from London.
It’s always storming somewhere.
There’s always a glass
of ale somewhere.
And the screaming.
And the screaming.
Acts of God
People are dead, including children. Whole neighborhoods are utterly destroyed, brought down to foundations and rubble. People are injured, traumatized, bereft. And there is no one to blame. No bomber, no shooter, no mad man or terrorist. Simply an “act of God.”
How I hate that phrase, act of God. As if God would come down from the clouds to smite a town out of, what, spite? Vengeance? God does not cause weather events, not out of a need to punish infidels and homosexuals, and not because he needed to call his children home to be with him. You will not find God in the great wind, any more than Elijah did.
No, you will find God in the people who keep calling to find out if their friends and neighbors are OK, in the parents who struggle to assure their children that they are safe, in those who sit at the side of those who mourn, in the mourners themselves. God is in the search and rescue dogs who are tirelessly moving house by house, searching for the scent of the missing, and in their tired handlers who volunteered and trained for this expert, grueling work. God is in the hospital staff tending the wounded and in the family members who wait and wait, hoping their loved one will be OK. God is in the first responders who are still hoping to find children alive and for those who have to carry still figures from the wreckage. God is in the people around the world sending their prayers and their love out to people they will never meet and the people who send their money to the Red Cross or animal rescue groups because it’s the only way they can think of to help.
And yes, God is in the people who dare to point out that while any given weather event is just weather, however tragic, a pattern of more and more extreme weather—the droughts, heat, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, one after the other—that pattern is not an act of God. That pattern is predicted by scientists who study climate change. Which is not an act of God. It is the consequence of a string of human choices. God is not in the droughts and the floods and the tornadoes. God is in the scientists who keep telling the truth when it seems no one is paying attention. God is in the all the people who are trying to limit their use of fossil fuels, in the companies and schools and churches who have invested in solar panels, in the environmental groups calling for meaningful legislation.
God is not in the wind. God is in all the people who see the suffering that is, and the suffering to come, and who choose compassion and justice and the hope of a better world.
We Don’t Know
We don’t know, and we can’t imagine. Who would set bombs to go off at the end of a foot race? Why would any human being do such a thing? What is the world coming to that such acts of violence are beginning to seem commonplace? What sort of beings are we, what sort of a society are we, that wholesale random violence would be an ongoing part of our lives?
We don’t know, and we can’t imagine. And maybe it isn’t such a bad thing to sit with those two facts. We don’t know. And so it does no good to speculate about foreign terrorists or domestic terrorists or mental illness or right-wing or left-wing conspiracies. We don’t know. Maybe by the time you read this, we will. But for the meantime we just have to live with horrible suffering for no known reason. Which is kind of how life is. We don’t know why some people get cancer, or why some babies die in their cribs or why one house is completely demolished by tornado or fire when the one next door is untouched. We just don’t know. You could say it’s God’s will, but usually that’s what the neighbors with the intact house say—“God saved us!”—while their neighbors blankly examine the rubble of what was their home.
We don’t know, and we live in a world of not knowing. Except that we know that brave first responders are tending the wounded and clearing the area of any other explosive devices. We know that people are caring for one another, that shell-shocked bystanders are seeing that the hurt receive medical attention, that people across the country are calling up the Red Cross to see if they should donate blood, that folks everywhere are praying, sending love, wishing for safety and healing. And we know this without witnessing it, without seeing it on the news, simply because that is what people always do. That is who we are.
And who we are is people who can’t imagine. We can’t imagine why someone would commit such a brutal and bloody act because however many times these horrific acts rip across our headlines, 99.99999% of us are the kind of people who not only wouldn’t do such a thing, we are also people who couldn’t even imagine doing it. We might or might not jump in a river in an attempt to save someone who is drowning, but we can imagine it. We might or might not walk onto a busy highway to rescue an injured dog, but we can imagine it. What we can’t imagine is creating wanton destruction, because we are not that kind of people. However many of these horrible, heart-wrenching events happen, they will only be perpetrated by the most infinitesimal fraction of the population, while the rest of us watch and pray and donate blood and do whatever we can to hold safe not only our children and our friends, but also complete strangers whose suffering we can, alas, imagine.
I can’t say whether it’s enough, but it’s how we live in this world.
There Is No Failure But Not To Try
We do not have to wait until we are perfect to practice our faith.
While the perfection of Jesus is lifted up in many congregations on this holy weekend, it is humanity that has always drawn Unitarian Universalists towards his prophetic message of love and justice. Our faith tells us that it is not perfection that is the goal – but transformation.
Within our own religious heritage, we often find flaws in the prophetic men and women who worked to bring visions of respect and mercy for all into this world. Alice Walker, writer and international activist, skillfully names this humbling truth:
“People who go about seeking to change the world, to diminish suffering, to demonstrate any kind of enlightenment, are often as flawed as anybody else. Sometimes more so. But it is the awareness of having faults, I think, and the knowledge that this links us to everyone on Earth, that opens up courage and compassion.”
Ms. A—, a wise soul who once managed the cafeteria of a New Orleans public school, sealed this lesson into my heart. Her “food counts” were always high by accounting standards and, no doubt, the administrative office was concerned that she was skimming off the top. The accounting couldn’t show the extra helpings she slipped onto lunch trays of ravenous teenagers with bottomless pits for bellies and this their only hot meal of the day. She was forever tucking fruit and snacks into the backpacks of children going home to empty pantries. Many afternoons she would pull out food for the young ones – hungry and tired- who were stuck at school after a long day, waiting for their guardians to get off from work and come get them.
The administrative faults of Ms. A— were, in fact, often the tools by which she, with courage and compassion, worked to diminish suffering on a daily basis. She was not perfect. She was practicing her faith.
“Deanna,” she would tell me “there is no failure but not to try.”
May we who dream of justice and mercy, of diminishing suffering, be not afraid to practice our faith today and every day. May we seek not perfection, but wholeness and healing for all of creation. There is no failure but not to try.