Hurricanes are Good

Hurricanes are good.
In North America we annually have several species of migratory creatures that head south. The monarch butterfly, for example, is a sailor, using its spinnakers to flutter down to Mexico for the winter, and as all sailors know, wind is your guide.
Mankind, in a time when we were not burning "ancient sunlight" to fuel a depleting and non-sustainable industrial revolution, knew all about the trade winds. Nations would set sail for cargo or perhaps the pursuit of freedoms, knowing that at certain seasons or latitudes the prevailing winds will carry you toward your destination.
And so, here along the Gulf of Mexico, we understand that hurricanes come with the heat of summer or early autumn. It's just part of the rhythm.
One of the funniest things I've ever heard were a group of ignorant democrats blaming Bush for hurricanes-- I laugh just remembering that episode, so funny... like the stooges, Moe and Curly-- so sincere and so ridiculous! (What's even funnier is when anti-Bush types have no idea that it was Clinton/Gore who chose not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, resulting in several staff quitting-- priceless!)
That's like blaming Obama for freezing rain in winter! Crazy!
Hurricanes tend to enter the Gulf of Mexico in such a way that the prevailing winds (counter-clockwise) bring the air mass southward, down the Texas coast toward the winter grounds in Mexico and beyond. This southward flow benefits butterflies, broad-tailed hawks and blue-winged teal, which migrate at the end of summer.
Hurricanes are a natural balance, a blessing from God upon His Creation.
And please don't shake your fist at the Almighty when you chose to build your homes along hurricane-front property and they are destroyed... hurricanes will happen.
And pretty-please, don't complain when you build a city below sea-level, and wonder why it floods... that is insanity, like jumping off a cliff and complaining about the landing.
Hurricanes happen.
Once upon a time God made man in His own image and placed him in His Garden, to tenderly care for it by pruning it to keep it in balance. Man rejected God, mined groundwater creating subsidence, burned fossils til the skies turned gray with waste, took what he wanted and left the poor to fend for themselves, then questioned why we have hurricanes.
Hurricanes remind us that we are not God.
And that's a good thing.

Dinora's Priest and Shane Claiborne's "Irresistible Revolution"

Today I was sitting in St. Jerome's Catholic mass for a precious student's Quinceanera, totally enjoying the moment... ok, the mariachi band and film crew from MTV threw me initially, but the priest kept things on track. The stain glass is awesome: there are three exposures--left (south), above the alter, and right, which read in order: "Christ has died", "Christ has risen", "Christ shall come again". Awesome!
Above the alter is a beautiful sculpture of my crucified savior; to the left is an alter to I assume Mary?
So we're worshiping together, and I'm praying for this little sister in Christ and for her precious family, and the priest starts to prepare the elements for the Eucharist (communion), and he says this amazing introductory prayer over the bread... something like, "Lord, we are unworthy to receive these elements... Lord, say the word and Thy servant will be healed." There were tears in my eyes, because I know that there is NOTHING I can do to deserve what Jesus did on the cross; and I am painfully aware that without Christ's mercy and grace, there is no healing for the sin that separates me from His presence.
So I'm sitting there in that pew, tears filling my eyes with an awareness of what Christ has done for an unworthy servant such as myself, and I hear these words: "Only Catholics are allowed to participate in the elements, but if you want a blessing come forward and cross your arms and I will bless you." That means, I will touch your forehead, but you are not invited to the real deal.
This is not the first time I have been un-invited to the Lord's table.
I even thought about going up there and having the priest refuse to share the bread, but that would not honor Christ, only sate my hurt spirit.
So I quietly sat in my pew, finding it difficult to rationalize "being blessed" by the very arm that barred me from my Lord's sacrament.
And then it hit me.
We do the same thing to the homeless.
We bar them from our fellowships.
We gate our communities.
We hire armed guards so we don't have to encounter the homeless or impoverished in our luxurious living.
How is that any different from this Catholic brother who refuses access to Followers of Jesus?
It's really not.
When people buy property for their faith community, do they make sure the location is near the bus routes, or do they tuck it into some suburban neighborhood, barricaded by pedestrian hardship?
Claiborne's book, Irresistible Revolution, is really messing with my Americanized pseudo-Christianity. The Mentor-ship of Campolo is very evident in his writings, reinforced with his eyewitness accounts of living out Christian community in a way that threatens the very fabric of today's empire... Constantine would NOT be amused, but Jesus would smile.
So how do we live out Christ's commands to love your neighbor, sharing all that you have so that no one is needy? How do we step into Christ's command to take up our cross like he did in Jerusalem and follow Him into certain (or at least possible) death? That's crazy talk.
But it's Jesus talk.
And to call Jesus talk "crazy" is to confess that we do not Follow... we simply observe from a safe distance.
It's a lot like the MTV reception following the Mass: the DJ was inviting the young people to come join in the celebration on the dance floor, and the vast majority stood in a scattered semi-circle, far enough from the festivities to be "safe", yet looking earnestly side to side, hoping some of their peers would lead them with those first few steps forward.
Nothing. Fear ruled.
The celebration was only joined when excited participants left the dance floor to come firmly lead their peers back into the festivities.
I ache that someone would come for me... to take my hand and lead me past the limitations of my own fearful faith.
Come Lord Jesus.

Dead Zone

In the last decade increasing evidence made its way into the popular media regarding a phenomenon in the Gulf of Mexico: the Dead Zone.
A dead zone is an area of marine ecosystem relatively devoid of life, hence: "dead"; this abiotic situation is usually attributed to a lack of dissolved oxygen, an elemental limiting factor required by both people and pisces.
The origin of a dead zone is a great ecological paradox; it is caused by too many nutrients in the water. As we began to put down our cell phones and pick up our notepads we began to unravel a forensic event in geographic scale. Farmers, subsidized by cheap petroleum-based fertilizer (primarily nitrates) found it easier to apply this artificial nutrient to their corn crops than to go through the arduous task of organically growing their cash-crop in a sustainable manner. Since this form of nitrogen is very water-soluble, that which is left over is flushed by the next inundation, so farmers err on the side of plenty. Unfortunately all rivers tend to lead to the sea, in this case the Gulf, and with the water flows massive amounts of artificial fertilizer.
So how can fertilizer kill fish? Is it toxic to them?
Not at these levels. No, one must think "macrosystems", the big picture of how organisms interact within an ecosytem. Nutrients are by definition nutritional, so what would benefit from all this nitrogen in the water world? Water plants, obviously.
"Wait-- water plants kill fish?"
Sort of...
Algae love fertilizer, and algae are photosynthetic, which produce oxygen as a by product... so wouldn't artificial fertilizer actually increase the amount of oxygen available to fish? At one glance, certainly.
So what's the problem?
It's artificial.
Meaning, that naturally this much nitrogen is not available on a continuous basis. Algae do not have bank accounts or purchase commodity futures; algae only know "grow and multiply" if there is much nutrition, stabilize if there is just the right amount of fertilizer, or die if there is not enough nutrients to support its population. Any kid who tried to raise a garden can appreciate this.
So what would happen if someone started messing with the levels of nutrients? Bingo!
When all that excess nitrogen hits the aquatic ecosystem, the algae respond like it's springtime all over again and "bloom" into massive population growth. But wait, the farmer stops putting fertilizer on his corn, which now cuts off this waiting mass of downstream phytoplankton, so the algae die off. Nature knows what to do with dead things-- it's called decomposition, and the critters beautifully designed for the job are bacteria. Though there are some exceptions, bacteria are excellent at quickly breaking down dead stuff as long as there is oxygen present in the water. In time the bacteria use up all the oxygen trying to decompose the dead algae that previously bloomed because a farmer used too much federally subsidized, petroleum-based fertilizer to grow a poor food stock for federally mandated ethanol, and now nothing can grow in large regions of the Gulf. So instead of using petroleum products to fuel our vehicles, we use petroleum products to grow our additives, which is then mixed back in with the other petroleum distillates, but now at a larger ecological cost, all in the name of saving the planet.
So in reduction, corn kills. Awesome.
I think that's funny.
I also think it is a metaphor (OK, fine-- to me, everything is a metaphor!)
How often, in trying to be productive in one part of our lives, do we completely trash something else entirely unexpectedly?
And how often in peoples lives does "plenty" result in "devastation"? Proverbs 23 warn us to hold a knife to our own throats when dining with affluent people, because you might develop a taste for their delicacies.
How often do we come away from encounters feeling emptier because of envy? How often do we lose perspective of the blessings we have already received, because a spirit whispers "more" into our contentment?
And why do I feel these dead zones in my own soul, these anoxic nether-regions that persist even though I know the joy of Christ's salvation?
How can I be dead inside? I feel nothing. I hope for nothing. I expect nothing outside of the present, and in that: that God would not leave me in this my final hour.