Blessings can arrive from catastrophes
My grandparents learned of hurricanes and their aftermath on faraway coastlands when they read newspapers and found a story and perhaps a photo. Radio might have brought news more quickly, but without pictures. Nowadays we can watch meteorologists track giant storms as they pick up strength and amble clumsily but menacingly toward some region where nearly all of us have a least a few friends or family members. Then we can sit in some calm, dry place and watch live feeds as disaster strikes.
This has become the ultimate in reality TV — no script or set director, simply ordinary people either evacuating to escape danger after frantic attempts to save possessions or else choosing for whatever reason to stay put and take their chances. Those in the former category rarely pause to give interviews. The latter group has time to talk. Some heed only their own intuitions, and certainly not the projections of the National Weather Service or some government agency’s counsel. Others merely crave adventure, no matter how risky, or stay to fend off looters who swoop in after a storm like vultures.
Numerous relatives and family friends live in Florence’s projected path. We spoke with some last week about their plans. Others shared thoughts on Facebook. A few requested prayers. We listened, wished them well, but found it difficult to construct prayers more detailed than general cries for mercy. Should one ask that a storm change direction so it will wipe out people we don’t know instead of those we love? Does it make any sense to pray that the 30 trillion or so gallons of water a large hurricane hurls about might simply vanish somehow?
Florence made landfall early Friday. Today, we have some sense of how deadly and devastating she proved, and the reality television cameras now survey the flooded landscapes and let us see the tears of those whose whole world seems wrecked. We know how our dear ones in harm’s way fared, and which of the crazy/brave non-evacuators survived and which gambled once too often.
We’ve seen this scenario often enough in recent years that we anticipate the loosely scripted political debate that will soon commence. Some will charge agencies responsible for disaster preparation and response with everything from ineptitude to prejudicially selective deployment of resources.
Agency leaders will vigorously defend themselves and their staffs even as others point out how leaders in affected areas brought trouble on their constituents by valuing commerce and profit over caution and safety.
In all likelihood, we won’t see on our screens the most sustained and effective responses. A million people or more will begin, one by one, to pick up their lives, rebuild their homes, refashion their routines, and eventually resume laughing. And countless more who would not have to do so will assist them. Some will come from nearby, others from great distances, and everyone who lends a hand will embody something common but nevertheless precious and even sacred—neighborliness, one of the things that makes human beings human. Last week, as Florence bore down on the Carolinas, crews of carpenters, electricians, heavy equipment operators, and plenty others throughout the nation packed up their tools and made ready to do some of the most important and rewarding work any of us ever takes up, assisting a neighbor in need.
The cameras will have moved elsewhere, and we won’t follow that story, but then, it’s not one to watch, but one in which to find an active role, and perhaps the only one in which we witness how a form of blessing stems from catastrophe.