When Disaster Strikes

Like people all over the world I have been riveted by the images of the triple disaster in Japan. "Unreal", "Unbelievable" the TV new anchors say. That is exactly right. My mind is accustomed to Hollywood action films playing on that same television. Pretend disasters created with miniature models and pyrotechnics fill the screen. Within a couple of hours credits roll. I am assured that no animals were harmed, and it is all over.

As I watch the force of the tsunami wave wiping out whole towns with unfathomable force and speed, houses and cars bouncing around like toys succumbing to playful destruction wreaked by a toddler in a sandbox, I can't quite believe this is real. Reality is too awful for me to grasp. The horror that those are real houses, real cars, real people's lives is to much for me to completely grasp.  Today the further devastation of nuclear radiation in the air from exploding nuclear power plants is added to the suffering of people who in a single Job moment have already lost everything.

The inevitable question comes. How could a good God allow this?
I don't know.
I can only hold onto the verse that has been repeating itself in my head for days. "Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God." Isaiah 50:10, ESV

The next verse contains a stern warning. "Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you shall have from my hand; you shall lie down in torment." Isaiah 50:11, ESV

In the darkest dark times, when we don't understand God or life, we really only have one small choice. That one choice makes all the difference in the rest of our story though. Are we going to sit in the dark holding onto the good hand of our God waiting for dawn, or are we going to stomp away in our anger, fear, and confusion, and light our own torches.

When people become lost in the wilderness their natural instincts are usually dead wrong. If they continue to stumble around they reduce their chances of survival. Most move further and further from the trail, sometimes splitting up away from each other, making rescue less likely. They often fall into further harm, even death. Survival experts say people should instead make the difficult choice to stay where they are and wait for help.

It is the same when we become lost any other kind of wilderness. We have to choose whether to try to grope our way out of the darkness alone, or stay put and trust God even though we are confused and frightened. No matter how much sense going it alone it seems to make at the time, we won't get far by ourselves.

The Pose of Tranquility

For a while now I have been doing yoga stretches every morning. I turn on PBS, and there is this lady who slowly and calmly twists her body into all sorts of impossible poses and positions. I was intrigued at first, because judging from the skin on her neck, and the fact that she talks about her granddaughter, she is around 60 years old.  Judging instead from her strength and flexibility and how straight and slender she is, I would guess her to be in her late 20s. She looks positively elegant as she twists herself into poses with names like the pretzel and the plow. I am pretty sure that I do not look elegant as I try to follow her lead. I think it would be really nice to look the way she looks when I am 60ish so I do yoga stretches with Priscilla every morning.

This morning, she led me and whatever other students she has in PBS land, into "the pose of tranquility". It goes like this. You lay stretched out straight and slowly raise your legs until your they are over your head, parallel to the floor, with your knees just over your forehead, your bottom in the air. Then, you gradually raise one arm at a time over your head, and rest your hand lightly on your shin, still without moving anything else. You balance there for a while, absolutely still, weight resting on your shoulder blades, legs over your head, stomach tight, your hands resting lightly on your shins, breathing softly. Tranquility is kind of challenging.

This morning I wrote a quick list of all the things on my mind. I was surprised at how many concerns were buzzing around my head. None of them were big, earth shattering, urgent crisises. These concerns were like the fruit flies that somehow found their way into my house this fall. Tiny, but annoying.

Until I started listing them in my journal, I didn't realize there was a whole swarm of fruit fly problems buzzing around my head. I didn't realize that I was really quite tense because of them. As I prayed over my list, I was reminded of the scriptures that tell us to "be still", "cast your cares on the Lord", and "be anxious for nothing".

These admonitions are the scriptural version of the yoga lady's pose of tranquility. Just like the yoga pose, the spiritual pose of tranquility sounds easy, but it isn't always.

Over the months of twisting myself into pretzels and plows with Priscilla the yoga lady, I have noticed that I really have gradually become stronger and more flexible. I suspect that maintaining spiritual stillness is like that too. As we slowly and patiently move ourselves into positions of trusting God, and being still, we grow stronger, calmer, and more flexible.

I am going to keep coaxing my reluctant self into both poses of tranquility.

Holding Hands

 

Small children are taught to face dangers and difficulties by holding hands with their daddies.

Most people grow out of this.  I never did.  

 When I was 13, my Dad and I decided to climb a “fourteener”.  Early one summer morning when the air was still chilly enough to make clouds of our breath in the half-light, we started up Long’s Peak together. 

Our legs were just warmed up, when we came up behind a group of college age guys, the football team at CU in Boulder.  For a few minutes, we hiked close enough behind two of the guys to overhear their words.   “This is pretty tough, a girl couldn’t make it...” I didn’t linger to hear the response. Instantly I determined to beat those college athletes to the top of the mountain.   I switched into a high gear and blazed by, pointedly flipping my long blond braids over my shoulder as I passed.  We left the football team in the dust, and raced them the rest of the day. 

We flew through shady forests, miles filled with lodge pole pines growing tightly together, narrow tops pointing toward heaven.  We strode through the gnarled trees at timberline, not pausing to wonder at the fields of miniature wild flowers that carpet the mountainside. We scrambled through the boulder field.    Sweaty, and with legs beginning to ache, we reached a narrow hole in the rocky ridge where climbers pass to the back of the peak for the final push to the top. 

This final mile crushed my bid to defend the strength of girls everywhere.  The mountainside is steep; each misstep is accompanied by the scrape and rattle of loose rocks tumbling down the sheer drop-off of thousands of feet.  Slips are sometimes fatal. 

Fear of falling slowed me down.   My short little body defeated me.  Even stretching as far as I could, my fingers and toes couldn’t grasp the next little ledge or crack I needed to use to pull myself up the last rocky cliff.  

That’s where hands came in.  Over and over, my dad’s strong hands boosted me from behind. In particularly difficult spots he scrambled up ahead of me, reached down, grasped my arm, and pulled me up from above.  “It’s OK Bethy, I’ve got you.” 

My rivals, the CU football guys caught on to my determination, if not the motivation behind it.   They slowed their own pace to help pull and push me up.  Eventually, I sat at the top scraped, and triumphant, sharing lunch at the top of the world with my former enemies.  The fact that they gave me a hand up made all the difference.

During the steep and dangerous seasons of adult life, when I can’t quite reach a firm foothold, it is still a father’s hand that pulls me up and over.

William Barkley said,  “When we believe that God is Father, we also believe that such a father’s hand will never cause his child a needless tear.  We may not understand life any better, but we will not resent life any longer.” 

In the book of Isaiah, God says “For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.'" He is saying to me, "its OK Bethy, I’ve got you.”