God and Hurricanes

This weekend the reading is the marvelous story of Zaccheus, the Tax Collector who climbs a tree to be able to see Jesus. It is a beautiful story, and I am sure the homilies we hear this weekend will shed light on it.  

I will forego a reflection on the Gospel to share with you a thought that I have come to since we experienced Hurricane Ian. This has been percolating in my soul since the hurricane. But right after the storm, I was still in a state of walking anxiety. I was not quite settled in my own soul enough to write about it. Now maybe enough time has passed to delve into my soul’s journey since September 28.

To put this in context, while I experienced Hurricane Irma in Orlando, I had never experienced a hurricane when it came ashore in the town where I live. And I have never experienced such a monster of a storm. So to say I was terrified would not put too fine a point on the experience. Even though I was utterly safe staying in a friend’s home, it was a harrowing experience.

My fear is not really the point, though. The day after Ian came with all his fury, I went home to my simple manufactured home, unsure what I would find. Amazingly, there was minimal damage. I stood looking at my home, and all I could think was, “Thank God it is still here.” I posted on Facebook for my family and friends in the north that I was safe and blessed that with only minor damage, my home survived. Therein lies the rub.

I considered myself blessed and even protected by God. Over the next several days, I watched the news and saw the terrible havoc and destruction caused by the storm; I revisited my feeling of being blessed and protected by God. If only having minor damage makes me blessed, what does that say about those who lost everything, even their lives? Was I really saying God likes me better, so He protected me? Of course not, but on some subconscious level, that is what my words were saying.

That realization led me down a frightening path. Jesus in the Gospel clearly tells us repeatedly that illness, disease, and poverty are not connected to a person’s sinfulness or their parent’s sinfulness. Yet here I was 2 millennia later, saying the same thing.  

I am not alone. We all do it. If someone battles Cancer and goes into remission, we say God blessed them. But doesn’t that imply God did not bless the person who died from cancer?  He did not bless the child’s family who died in a tragic accident. God did not bless the person who lost everything in a storm. To be honest, I have even heard (and may have said myself) Thank God I got such a good parking space at Publix.

So my reflection, plain and simple, is this. My house was not spared in the hurricane because God blessed me. Someone else’s was not destroyed because God punished them. People do not get sick or well based on the blessing or curse of God. People do not die in horrific accidents or are saved from burning buildings at the whim of God. And for heaven’s sake, God does not help us find the best parking spaces.

Our God is not a fickle God. He does not bless or punish with illness or the weather. While I think most of us believe that, it would be good to make sure our language reflects what we actually believe.

My home was spared because the winds didn’t happen to swirl in a way that would destroy it. People get sick because they get sick, and people get well because they respond to medications and the wise care of doctors. I do not deny the possibility of miracles. It is just we need to be careful to attribute to God what is God’s and attribute to nature, viruses, disease, and chance what is theirs.

Our God does have an intimate role in our lives. Our God gives us the grace and the strength to handle difficulties and sorrows. Our God inspires us to reach out a hand and our heart to one another when we see the other hurting. God encourages us to love and to act in love always and in all ways. God gives us Himself. He lives in us so that we might be His loving presence to those hurting in our world.

Be there storms, diseases, or disasters; God loves us all with His outrageous love. We need to live out God’s love with and for one another.

In God’s Unending Love,

Gwen