Today’s find: A time to tremble

I looked it up: a large round galvanized stock tank weighs about 175 pounds, empty. 

So very odd then, I thought, to see just such a steel tank suspended 25 feet aloft and crumpled like foil against the trunk of a maple tree in the farmhouse yard.

Odd. And impressive, to consider the force of the tornado that flung it there. 

Stock tanks are mass-produced, of course, and easy to replace. Not so the venerable 106-year-old barn that gave so much character and beauty to the Reiker Family Farm – the place where my Sweetie’s father grew up, and which continues to serve as a country refuge for members of her extended family.

Or perhaps I should say ‘served.’ Last week’s tornado struck a devastating blow, turning out-buildings into debris fields and ripping the metal roof off half the old farmhouse.

No one was injured in the storm, thank the Lord. But many hearts have been broken and decades of fond memories ripped away by the winds.

My Sweetie and I trekked out to Franklin County the other day, to lend a hand with the ongoing clean-up work. And yes, to mourn a bit. As one of her brothers noted, when you’ve been visiting a place for 70 years, you get to know it pretty well. And you pretty much expect it to stay put, to remain a reliable cornerstone in your experience of the world. 

Then in an instant, everything changes. Not unlike the folks we hear about in today’s gospel, I suppose – “those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them.” No doubt, my own feeling of loss pales in comparison to what their families felt in Jesus’ time.

But what I’m noticing today is also something more like wonder and hope and gratitude. Because spring has sprung, you see – at the foot of the very tree which now sports a crumpled water tank in its branches. Daffodils are blooming, bearing witness against the debris. And I am dumbstruck like Moses to see such a sight: “a bush, though on fire, was not consumed.”

The Giver of All Good Gifts is here, I realize. 

Still here, despite the destruction. 

And so in some very real sense, I am standing on holy ground as I help to clear away the debris. We all are, just as were the generations who worked this land before us. Like Moses, we are invited to look, see – and perhaps tremble – at this remarkable sight, the daily bounty God sets before us.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS