[I’m on vacation for the month of July. But I’m still blogging. This isn’t a sermon or a reflection I’ve written with anyone in mind. Just thoughts that happen alongside the lectionary.]
The crazy storm on Thursday swooped in as deep darkness drowned the mid-afternoon sunshine. Winds rushing faster than a car on the interstate drove trees into homes and cars.
And then it was over.
Not the storm, but the worst of it. Lightening continued to line the sky over the next two hours, but the downpours and the winds were worn out.
As people emerged from homes and offices and other shelters, they surveyed the landscape as they rushed to assess the damage at home. Tree branches and leaves coated the concrete, the grass, any surface it could find.
But as I drove home, I saw something else.
I saw people. Digging themselves out. And digging each other out. We saw people sweeping the streets and cutting branches.
And the beauty was so subtle.
We couldn’t tell who was helping whom.
It was just people out, assessing, fixing, cleaning, rebuilding. Neighbors talking and walking and sharing.
We also saw people carrying bags of ice, which shook loose from memory that we have a refrigerator full of food. But almost worse: condiments. Who wants to restock that?
And the cool evening temperatures were bound to give way to the heat. The storm was, itself, a balm as much as a catalyst for destruction.
There’s an image here, somewhere.
Perhaps it’s one that is so common to our lives; people helping out in the midst of common tragedy. Which is pretty true. If not something we just rely on rather than invest in.
But I think the better challenge is the one I offered a few days ago. That we both want to insist on welcoming and being welcomed. On being good, generous people. And also the victims of terrible misfortune (or tragic slight by someone else) who need to be welcomed by someone else.
This, of course, isn’t a judgment. Just a sense I identify in myself, too.
Wanting to welcome and/or be welcomed. All the time: either/or or else both/and. Always.
And as the heat begins, I’m hoping the internet holds, hoping to schedule this post now just in case we have no power through the weekend, there is something I am confident I will want later:
A cup of cold water.
Will I find one? Will I have any to offer?