Stormy weather
...and reflections after the storm
Give thanks that we have escaped major hurricanes this year, but what a weather! The hurricane season officially closed on November 30, but there are still small areas of disturbances hovering around. May we remain out of reach.
It wasn’t easy watching the television coverage. The heavy and incessant rains from the outer bands of passing storms has inundated sections of Jamaica and caused utter devastation in those areas. The pictures of flooded gullies, swollen rivers, demolished houses, and impassable roads were, to say the least, upsetting. It’s painful to think of what our brothers and sisters in those parts of the island are going through post-hurricane season.
The luckier ones among us have much to be thankful for. With each recent shower we cross our fingers, check our surroundings, and trust and pray that we are not laying ourselves open to the misery that has overtaken the victims of the October-november onslaught. One thing is certain, hurricane season will never be the same again. Remember the elementary school jingle “September, remember; October all over”? It now reads like: “Every month come it must.”
The scenes from the hurricane-battered areas in the USA and in Central America made us shudder. Suppose, on top of all the heavy rains we experienced, a hurricane had hit us? Don’t forget the trajectory had us in sight on at least two occasions. One member of our Thursday evening debate club swears that while he was watching the weather report he saw Jamaica duck. He swears the hurricane didn’t change course; Jamaica shifted. It came so close that I want to believe him.
The shift game is little consolation for those who got the direct hit and those whose houses may have been washed away by the storm. Yet, it could have been worse. The damage to roads, bridges, retaining walls, culverts, etc, has exposed the weakness of an infrastructure that could have collapsed under the pressure of a Hurricane Laura or Hurricane Iota, the latter of which hit the ground running at 160 miles per hour.
Central America suffered a double blow, first of all from Eta, a category four storm that claimed some 60 lives, followed by Iota.
Further north, America’s Golf Coast was battered an incredible seven times, with Eta tormenting Florida twice during its circle, and leaving untold damage to housing and beach communities.
Pity poor Louisiana; that state saw at least five storms this year, including Zeta and the 150-mile-per hour Laura.
Taken into context, our prayers were answered, as we were spared the direct impact and potential destruction from those high-strung 2020 hurricanes. But what about those who also prayed and did not get any relief? That’s a debate that takes place every year, especially at this time, and finds us treading into deep theological waters because the answers are hard to come by.
Christians who find themselves on the wrong end of the storm may cry, “Why, Lord, why?” But we are taught to find comfort in the letter of St Paul, in which he reminded that, in time of personal distress, his Lord told him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in [your] weakness.”
The eternal truth is that it rains on the just and the unjust, but when Christians are hit by disasters their belief that God can bring good from a bad situation does provide hope and resilience.
Time and again we have seen evidence of that faith in deliverance, that resilience, and that strength of character embedded deep in the heart of Jamaicans.
Hours after the passage of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 I was