I’m just now back into my study at the church building. My wife and kids are with her parents where power has been restored and I’m now able to put some thought toward what the role of our church in our community looks like in the days ahead. But first, I feel like it would be inappropriate not to process the thoughts that have swirled in my head since last Friday morning when the power went out.
I live in Greenwood, South Carolina. Our town was hit hard by Helene: 100% power outage, 100-year old trees down everywhere, homes destroyed. My neighborhood is on day eight with no power. My family and I were lucky: trees missed our house by a few feet, and no permanent damage was done to our home or to any of us. We’re blessed with a gas stove and easygoing children. Others weren’t as lucky on any front.
The Greek word apokalupsis, from which we get “apocalypse,” carries the idea of “unveiling” or “revealing.” The Southeast has had, in its own way, a miniature apocalypse. Hardship always brings truth to the surface. As a church, we’ve explored 1 Peter 1:6-7 and its implications over the past several months. The apostle begins declaring the beauty of the salvation in Jesus, and then states:
“6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
What has this storm revealed about the Christian faith? What should we remember long after we get the lines back up, the refrigerators restocked, and our AC running?
A disclaimer: none of the following is intended to paint a rosy picture of what life on the ground is like, especially for those who have lost their homes or for the entire communities in Western North Carolina that are just gone. These are my thoughts from an immensely blessed position, trying to carve out some space for hope and joy in the midst of what is for many a very dark time. Read accordingly.
Here are a few thoughts.
Our community has jumped into action to serve one another over the past week. Christians have been leading the charge in clearing trees, prepping meals, and collecting materials for those who have lost everything. My neighbors and I have stood in our street and checked on each other daily. Information about needs and updates has spread rapidly.
It seems like our idea of who counts as “neighbor” quickly widens when the trees come down. Everyone checks on everyone else,
I can’t help but think: won’t it be terrible if we go back to pleasantries and polite distance after this? Our neighbors will still be there once we’re all back in our air-conditioned homes. And needs will still exist. They might not be as immediately obvious as “a tree is blocking my driveway,” but is it not worth thinking about how we can continue to serve, love, support, share, grieve with, and edify one another?
What are the weaknesses in our community that this storm has exposed? What can we do on the other side of this not only to get things back to how they were, but to make them better for all of us in the long run? The same neighbors will be there in the years to come. Will they still know that we love them? Will we work to show them that our love goes beyond just their immediate need to their ongoing wellbeing, and ultimately their eternal joy?
I’ve eaten a lot of rice and beans this week: kidney beans, black beans, you name it. I’ve gotten pretty good, if I say so myself, at seasoning and dressing them up a bit so they have some flavor. And to be honest, they’ve been quite tasty! Simple things can go a long way. I just talked about serving our neighbors. The thing that’s been interesting to me is how simple the work of service is. Provide a meal, move some branches, hear a sad story.
How much of our churches’ ministries have abandoned the simple and crucial things for the big and spectacular but ultimately shallow? How much of the Christian life have we made arcane and complex when the basic commands—pray, serve, obey—are actually remarkably straightforward? What if the unnerving lesson that we need to learn from Helene is that being a Christian, at its basic level, by the grace of Christ, is actually quite simple?
That’s not to say it’s easy, but it’s not complicated. You don’t need electricity to listen to the Sermon on the Mount. You don’t need AC to obey the Great Commandment. In fact, I wonder how many of our technologies end up working against us by distracting us from what’s really important. What if some of the simplicity of our lifestyle this week is worth preserving into the future for the good of our own souls? Let’s not complexify everything as soon as we can again so we can feel good and busy. Let’s remember how good beans and rice taste and keep some simplicity in our lives.
Complaining comes to me naturally. It’s probably one of my most refined skills. But it has not been helpful this week.
Watching my girls play in the yard in the evenings when it’s too dark to be in the house has been a joy. Feeling the cool of the morning air as I step out on the front porch has been a highlight of the day. Brewing a pot of coffee with a gas stove and a pan has been oddly satisfying.
These and a hundred other small glimpses of goodness have kept me going through the week. The times where I’ve wasted my phone battery to see who on Facebook just got power back were the least helpful moments.
Jeremiah Burroughs, hundreds of years ago, wrote The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. He states:
We are at God’s table every day, and it is free, whatever we have. It is accounted very unmannerly for a man at his friend’s table to find fault with things…Now when we are at the table of God (for all God’s administrations to us are his table)…for us to be finding fault and to be discontented is a great aggravation of our sin.
These days from God have been a day at God’s table. The meal may not be what we would have prepared, but so it is. Will we allow the goodness of God’s mercy to us in Christ help us see the ongoing goodness of God’s mercy to us in our present circumstances? What about our future ones?
I noticed the spiderwebs for the first time yesterday morning. The first one I saw was stretched between some bushes in a neighbor’s yard and a branch high above it. It was still wet with dew and the sun struck in just the right way. I walked my daughters down the street and noticed probably half a dozen more. They were beautiful. I’d never noticed them before.
And there are other things too. It took my trees tumbling into each other and filling up my back yard for me to notice how beautiful they were: the stretch of the branches, the absolutely massive girth of the trunks, the brilliance of the leaves. The birds haven’t stopped singing even though their homes are gone. A breeze through an open window really does feel so good if you slow down to enjoy it.
I wonder if anyone else has noticed any of this? How much do we regularly miss because we don’t take the time to look at it? How much does the horrifying loss of that which we take for granted cause to notice other things that still remain?
Jesus himself loved to point at ordinary beauty to teach us about eternal beauties. Sparrows and flowers and grass and seed and trees shaped the minds of his disciples as they walked with him, day by day, and learned to notice what was around them in light of the Kingdom that had drawn near. I want to be a noticer.
A final thought, and maybe one that we’re not ready to think about yet: what do we do when the trees fall down? I think, eventually, we have to plant new ones.
It would be a shame if we gave up on trees altogether after this, wouldn’t it? As horrible as the past few days have been, as inconvenient as no power is, as anxiety-inducing as the thought of another storm might be, I don’t think it would behoove us to get rid of all trees in town just so we never have to worry again.
But this isn’t just about trees. The Christian life is one in which we invest in things that might cause us grief and pain in the future. A fallen tree can take out a house. A ruined relationship can corrupt a life of memories. Everything about the Christian life is a way to open us up to disappointment in this life. But still, it’s worth it.
We plant trees knowing that one day, for one reason or another, when we’re ready for it or not, that they’ll fall down. In the same way, we reach out to our neighbors knowing that they might be selfish, ungrateful, or burdensome in the long run. We open ourselves up to one another knowing that to do so is to invite the possibility of pain. C. S. Lewis states it wonderfully in The Four Loves:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
We are vulnerable, frail creatures. A tree or two can upend our entire lives. But that doesn’t change the fact that the trees are still beautiful and good. We cannot afford to sequester ourselves off from pain, from danger, from the fear of loss and the anxiety of discomfort. We have to keep planting, keep building, keep growing, even though we know that we still live in a world where trees will fall. Because we look forward to the day when the trees will clap, when the sea will roar with joy, when the heavens and earth will sing to the one who makes all things new and wipes away all tears and the former things—destroyed towns, ruined homes, weary workers, and everything else—will be no more.
So let’s keep pushing through these days. Let’s love one another, serve the needy, weep with the grieving, sit with the frustrated, and put up with a bit of sweat and grime. But let’s not stop doing those things when the trees are cleaned up and the power is back on. Let’s take the good that the Lord has given us and use it—daily, doggedly, earnestly, relentlessly—until he comes back. And then, we can rest. And it will all be well.