Watched a video today of one of the largest cells the state has every seen. 151 mile per hour winds that accompanied a mile wide, multiple vortex tornado near Canton, Okla. As it moved out across a lake, and before it achieved maximum size and speed, one of the men on the video said, "Finger of God," or it could have been fingers, who knows. It did look like a divine digit reaching down to earth to crush the disobedient, to create maximum awe in a storm of titanic proportion. Marduk, the Babylonian storm god and primal badass, would have been proud.
A former student whom I adore, one of my best ever, especially considering the quality of education she received at a substandard tiny-ass high school in Oklahoma, posted a Bible verse. Of course. And it was apropos (of nothing). "God is our refuge and strength; always ready to help in times of trouble." Psalm 46:1. This is the kind of verse that gets posted repeatedly in times like this.
If you don't live in Oklahoma and haven't watched the news, we got our turn this storm season with tornados of similar size and ferocity to Tuscaloosa and Joplin. We usually do in Oklahoma. It's been a strangely mild year. We were thinking about celebrating, and then Alabama and Missouri got roundly fucked, and it felt highly inappropriate, so we settled for an internal "I'm not saying I'm happy, but I'm glad it wasn't us this goddamn time." And then today. 11 or 14 dead. I don't know yet. Four in my town of Piedmont. Eight minutes before the same massive cell that clusterfucked Canton moved through Piedmont, our local station was showing its trajectory to be right down our street. We had the mattress and pillows in the hallway, doors closed, dogs on leashes, external hard drive and purses, important papers, etc., all stacked behind the mattress. We might as well have held a baby up in front of us if that mothefucker had come down our street. Five minutes before it hit, the power went out. Fuckshit. Battery powered radios. Insert batteries. Nothing. Fuck. Maybe plan for this shit ahead of time, eh, shitty ass boy scout. A friend and my daughter both text ten minutes later: the storm is north of us. Right before it headed due east down our street, it took a janky northeast track, basically turning 70 degrees and creating a path of misery north, east, and west of us. Hard to feel relief when nightfall brought the cancellation of a search for a three year old who was ripped from her mother's arms, and the television showed footage of the mother's 15-month old being attended to by paramedics. Yeah, lucky us...
The verse is telling in that light. God, our refuge and strength. I'm sure my student really meant: God our comfort in times of trouble, after the shitstorm has left us with nothing. The storm he created. Or did he? The storm he could stop, but didn't. Or could he? I simply don't care. I have no vested interest in sorting through the ambiguity of Biblical applications at this point. I don't have to celebrate that "God was my refuge," when a three year old is likely fuckin' dead. Yay me? I don't have to say, like the douchenozzle did in the wake of the I40 bridge collapse years ago: "I'm a friend of God, and God takes care of his friends." (It was an Abraham reference for you folks who never actually read that book you're supposed to believe. James 2:23) Never mind that dozens were drowned in the river directly below him; clearly they were all pagans. The narcissism and individualism of American faith, not just Christianity (there is no more annoying person than the one who is "spiritual but not religious." It simply means: I make this shit up as I go, and I prefer what suits me.), would be unsettling if it weren't so utterly fucking banal. But in times like this, it is malicious.
I wrote last time about my ex. Her second husband, to whom she was married for about ten years, was killed in a motorcycle accident last week. He was a police officer and retired Marine. He served all his life. He died when his motorcycle collided with a car. That ain't even poetic; it's just shitty. She was immediately "reassured" with facebook comments about God's plan. God's plan? What sort of lunacy is this? It reminds me of Harold Camping's latest "explanation" about the "invisible Rapture" and the coming judgment. Bible words can be made to do anything. They don't have to be verified, only repeated. They don't have to be tested, only applied. They are flexible, malleable, ignorable, unchanging, and any other adjective that suits your current need. They are, in short, epistemically worthless; they have no content. They are mantras or koans or axioms or maxims or whatever you need them to be, but they don't really mean anything.
A believer with any sense at all would emerge from her shelter today, look around, scour the Bible, and simply ask: What the hell are You thinking? She wouldn't find a Psalm or Proverb that speaks of God as the shelter in a time of storm. If we're talking about a South Park style fisticuffs today, Marduk kicked YHWH's ass. It wasn't even close. And if you want to talk series, he's up 3-0 in a best of 7: Tuscaloosa, Joplin, Oklahoma. Look out, Kansas. This only matters, of course, if you actually believe in a God who shelters us in a time of trouble. I don't even know what that means when you look at devastation like this, and I prefer not to be encouraged to "look for God's plan," or figure out how God can bring about good from evil; I sure as hell don't want to be told to look for invisible signs of God's work...um...they're invisible, right? Just like the "strong tower" when the storms shredded those houses.
