The will of God

Every spring, we get hit with regional tornadoes. I think God is punishing the people of Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama for backing Mike Huckabee in 2008. He’s some idiot who doesn’t believe in God’s grand plan to slowly advance life on the planet Earth. God is upset because evolution was designed to show that people can change for the better and slow improvement over time is part of nature. Humans will eventually become more perfect beings, and that man should not count on instantaneous fixes from Heaven, but instead should understand that progress takes time and effort and comes from within. See? It was divinely crafted, and all the scientific evidence was deliberately left behind in the fossil record to show mankind all these messages of hope and life. God doesn’t like creationists.

Whenever we hear tornado sirens, we take the kids downstairs. We debate if it is worth our effort. Mostly those arguments are based in the superstition that our neighborhood exists in some kind of pastoral haven and is spared most sorts of catastrophe. It turns out that I was right. We haven’t suffered any exterior storm damage ever, but once my wife tore the carpet while dragging a couch and ripped out a wire from the stereo to the TV and in the process knocked a speaker over into a CD shelf.

All things considered, it could have been a lot worse. Everyone was safe and I made it to work at the usual time, and there were only minor, temporary disruptions to our lives. In contrast, my brother in California, has had to evacuate twice because of wildfires. His block was spared, but he and his family had to grab the dog and bug out. The fire department calls, they expect you to grab the dog and go in 3 minutes or less.
When Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod, the ministers of his era blathered on that he was denying the will of God. If God wanted a building to catch fire from lightning, He should be allowed to do so. In fact, the fire departments of his day used to douse the buildings adjacent to the one that was struck by lightning, but would leave the stricken building to burn to the ground. Now, we have evolved our thinking to the level where we no longer believe God strikes people dead through tornadoes, hurricanes or lightning bolts. The Devil does that stuff. Any close call where one is severely injured but narrowly escapes death is God “watching out for you”.

Due to the recent tornado attacks in the Appalachian and Ozark regions, Nancy Pelosi has come out strongly and decisively against tornadoes and the practice of tornadoing. The Obama administration, as not to appear to ignore the issue, pledged that no new tornadoes will be issued from his administration and that Mr. Obama would work with Ms. Pelosi, the Republican leadership and other top officials to construct meaningful policy that thwarts tornado efforts nationwide. Sarah Palin, meanwhile supported the tornado activity, being the will of God. She threatened to veto any legislation that would crimp the hand of the Almighty, until she was reminded that she was no longer an official in any capacity. Mitch McConnell remained more cautious, stating that he would require tornado legislation to differentiate between God-caused tornadoes and those caused by the Devil.

One woman I work with used to work in a bank. One day the tornadoes came to town, and she high tailed it to the vault. Everyone else, she said, stood around in the bank lobby, which was surrounded in large glass windows. Yes, she could open the bank safe from the inside. Even with the door open, you’re still covered on five sides. I was hopeful that the story would end with her coming out of the vault to find the bank in tatters and dead bodies in all directions, but the tornado missed the bank by a few blocks and there was only minimal damage to her building. What a let down. She should have hurt some people just to make a better story.
Tornadoes aren’t frequent, and when they happen it’s very localized. They make for news because of the spectacular disaster scenes that ensue. Fifty people might die, which is tragic, but the area covered by the tornado conditions might contain something like fifty million people. Your average snowstorm in the northeast or heat wave in the southwest could easily claim one victim in a million residents, too. I’ve been here since 2000 and I’ve never seen a funnel cloud. I heard the tornado sirens a lot when I worked out in Berea. That siren included a spoken announcement to seek refuge. I found it really freaky to hear some dark voice warning of impending doom coming from an unseen loudspeaker ten miles away. The sound echoed off the mountains, making the eeriness even weirder.