Repent!

Grandma said the Lord is trying to tell us something and eventually the message will get though. I didn't ask Grandma what god has been trying to say. In the nearly one century she's been alive, I'm sure she's seen many events that could inspire repentance --few as devastating as a natural disaster that has sent thousands of people into her city seeking refuge.

I didn't bother to ask her what a hurricane might mean because Grandma isn't much of a talker and she's certainly not a fool. So I didn't think she would presume to answer such a question over a long distance phone call. Nor would she rush out to hang up "Repent!" signs all over town, or wag fingers at washed out casinos or large openly homosexual populations, or even global warming -- much as these things may or may not alarm her (I don't know if they do, since she and I haven't discussed them).

I wish more people were like Grandma. I wish these people would repent of the sin of turning to quick, canned meanings in response to a complicated confluence of forces. If there is meaning in the recent horrors, it won't fit on a billboard, a sound bite, or even a sermon.

And now, a sermon for the choir.

It is patently absurd to claim that any disaster --wrought by nature, human error or a combination of both-- is a holy retribution. It pains me to even have to write that out, it is seems so obvious. It does not compute. Those who believe there is any righteousness in an elderly woman traumatized by the memory of a dead baby floating past her would believe anything, would justify any atrocity, not only in the name of their great cause, but for the sake of comfort and convenience.

Repent!