My heart aches on behalf of the victims in Oklahoma. Once again, 14 years after an F5 killed 46 people, another horrible tornado has torn through Moore, Oklahoma.
I have lived elsewhere for most of my adult life and I was not born there, but I was raised in Oklahoma from the time I was a baby until I left for college. Growing up I was used to tuning into the TV when the sirens went off. I remember many times going into my sisters' closet to wait out the storm, hoping and praying that the tornado would not hit our house. A tornado never got too close to our house, but I have friends who had tornadoes hit within a half mile. I can remember my friend Cale (who, last I knew, lived in Moore) tell me about crawling in a bathtub with a mattress on top of him as he rode out one storm. If you grew up in Oklahoma, you have a story. Twister might have been over-the-top but there's enough truth in it to make most Okies recognize what was going on.
I don't understand why these things happen. I'm not just talking about a naturalistic explanation: Oklahoma has long been 'tornado alley' and there's just something about the way the topography meets the atmosphere that makes it where some places get nailed more often...I understand this. I'm more concerned about this spiritually...the two extremes, that God causes everything to happen (and though is directly responsible for this suffering) or that God has left the future open, and chooses to not prevent such things (or even that he cannot prevent such things), are not really great options. People of faith for thousands of years have asked these questions and have made some of the attempts at theodicy some of the most powerful expressions of faith. But we really don't know. Yet we have a Christ who takes all these things upon himself, and for that we can always be thankful.
One final thought: I'm lucky nobody reads this and cringe to make this political...but something that will come up in the next few days is how we, as a nation, pitch in to rebuild Moore. So, you would think that Oklahoma representatives and senators understand that as much help as Oklahoma often needs in things like this, they really don't have a clue. Just a quick bit of fact-checking shows that three of the five members of Congress from Oklahoma voted against helping the hurricane rebuilding in New Jersey. Both senators, the deplorable Tom Coburn and the even worse Jim Inhofe, voted against it. We sure don't want to waste money on those northeastern liberals, of course. I'm wondering how quickly the same people will be screaming for federal funds to help rebuild Moore, Shawnee, and whatever unfortunate places get blown away this year during tornado season. Once again the lesson is this: we must always hang in this all together. We're Americans. We help each other out...unless, of course, you are from the wrong party.
