I’m at the Emerald Coast this morning. I have never seen the beach like this before. The reason, of course, is because Hurricane Ida is scheduled to hit Louisiana with full Category 4 force later today. Don’t even ask me what I am doing here at a time when others are evacuating.
Is it some weird coincidence of nature that this storm will occur today on the same date that Hurricane Katrina devastated the same place in 2005?
The world is interconnected. What happens in one part of the world affects another part, in the same way that the human body is an interconnected system and what happens in one part of the body inevitably affects another area.
Today is August 29th, three days from the climatic failure of Joe Biden’s botched evacuation of United States troops from Afghanistan. The coming storm is dark and foreboding. The national anxiety is rising with the recent loss of 13 American soldiers, with concern for those Americans that can’t get to the airport and are certain to be left behind, with shame and fear for the allies we are abandoning to the Taliban to be hunted down by the “kill list” Biden handed over, along with the surrender of American military equipment and intelligence.
As I stand on the pier under the blackened sky, the ocean rages, angrily swelling well beyond its normal boundaries. The wind spits out the sand furiously, stinging my skin in a way that takes my breath away. I stand before the raw power and magnificence of that raging ocean and I feel the connection of my soul to another created system, a unique kind of unity.
“I know,” I said out loud. “I feel the pain, too. The anguish. The outrage. The sorrow. The dread.” And to my surprise, my own salty tears joined the salty seawater and rolled down my cheeks and I wept with abandonment. I wept for the lives lost, not just last week, but for the past 20 years of the long War on Afghanistan. I wept for the vast evil corruption in the current political system so openly exposed these days, but without apparent recourse or accountability. I wept for the failure of the church to hold ground against the storm surge of evil. I wept for the children being trafficked and horribly abused around the world. I wept because of the magnitude of human sin and suffering. I wept for the sad resignation in the eyes of our neighbor who fled here from Louisiana to escape Ida. “I will lose everything” he said quietly. I wept because I feel so small, so powerless to affect change, to do good in this world.
Eventually, release came and my emotion shifted into prayer, prayer to the only One who is able to make a difference in this current place in time and space. To Him alone I lift my voice and in Him alone I place my hope.
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all.”
I Chronicles 29:11