A Mighty Wind

Dark and ominous, the clouds started forming in the early afternoon, violently shoving the bright and shining sun behind its dingy blanket. As time passed, the gray shroud grew darker and darker, casting its deathly pall upon the denizens of the earth, covering them with an uncharacteristic mid-day darkness. The dark sky swirled about like a witch’s cauldron, brewing with a barely restrained energy as though it were just waiting to explode upon us. There was a storm coming, but for a time at least, its power and intensity lay imprisoned behind that great, churning cumulonimbus wall. I sat at my school desk watching the atmospheric spectacle as it unfolded, cursing the now apparent fact that there would be no defending the tree fort from invading armies today, nor would biking down our dirt and gravel road be an option. Disappointed, I slumped into my chair and vacantly stared ahead, the teacher’s voice droning on about adverbs and adjectives as I watched the clock tick slowly to 3:00.
Soon, the final bell rang and the class rose as one, quickly exiting the room and the building to the land of freedom that lay just outside those double doors. The wind blew with strong gusts across the campus, carrying plastic bags and loose papers and a mixture of the normal things left behind by children running towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Among educators, there is a well known, though perhaps undocumented, direct correlation between changes in barometric pressure and the behavior of children, so there was an expected wildness among the student population that afternoon as they were herded into their respective areas for bus and car riders. By the time they began entering their waiting forms of transportation, the noise level had reached an eardrum-bursting crescendo of chatter, making all but the closest of voices completely indecipherable. I was in no mood for small talk, though, as I stood in the designated area awaiting bus 14 and the ensuing ride home.
The first drops of rain found their way to earth as we began filing onto the bus, evolving quickly from a light sprinkling to a full downpour, drenching those of us unlucky enough to be at the back of the line. The gales of wind caught hold of the falling rain, pushing the water into veritable walls that crashed, one after the other, into our vehicle, reducing visibility to almost nothing. We hurriedly shoved our way from the rear into the narrow passage between the seats of the bus, the bus driver’s yells for us to calm down drowned out by the loud peals of thunder echoing about the chamber. Pushing myself up from the rubbery floor wet with mud from the shoes of the students who had already passed, I slid into my assigned seat beside the boy with whom I shared it, James, my sopping wet body landing with a plop on the plastic seat.
James turned to me, his eyes wide and brow furrowed with a worried look on his freckled face. “What,” he demanded, “have you heard?”
Taken aback by his abrupt question, I recoiled for just a moment as though he had thrown a feigned punch, before confusedly returning his question, “About what?”
“The storm, stupid. Somebody said it was gonna be a tornado.”
Tornado. The word itself strikes fear into the heart of any person living in an area prone to these destructive weapons of nature. Landscapes could be devastated, homes ruined, lives taken as this juggernaut bent on total destruction tears through the countryside with its arbitrarily striking attack. The violent winds pummel anything standing in their way with a fierce suddenness, leaving behind only rubble and despair in their wake. It is a terrible and unrelenting enemy, one whose blitzkrieg offensive was unstoppable by human means.
As I watched the dark clouds portending disaster through the solid sheen of rain, my mind turned to God and to the church I attended with a mechanical consistency. From an early age my thoughts had been overrun with visions of a vengeful and angry God, one who would instantly strike down evildoers or wipe out entire populations with a mere wave of His hand. Brother John would stand in the pulpit and look at you with eyes that could pierce the soul and sweat running down his red face as his booming voice told tales of woe and death. We were taught about the great flood that wiped out almost all life on the earth, about pestilence and plagues, earthquakes and storms, fiery rain and murderous angels, all done in the name of an outraged deity. God was in control of all, from the sun to the moon to the oceans and the storm clouds, so all things must happen for a reason found in His divine plan. That being the case, I saw tornadoes as I saw all of these past events, as a mere piece of equipment in His heavenly tool belt, amounting to yet another method for Him to enact punishment on the guilty for their many sins. “Thy will be done,” we would say, regardless of the outcome, for nothing happened outside of His influence.
“So,” said James, no doubt growing tired of my silence, “Do ya’ll got a storm shelter?”
I started, my trance-like state broken by James’ annoying insistence, “Yeah, we got one, but we haven’t used it in a while.”
“I betcha you’ll be usin’ it tonight. You remember that one last year?”
“Yeah,” I answered as my thoughts wandered again, ignoring James as he continued to prattle on about a previous tornado that, in his story, had grown to mythical proportions. I slouched into my seat and stared out the window at the blackened skies and falling precipitation, waiting my turn to exit the great yellow vehicle. After several more minutes of intermittent stops along country roads that lay hidden behind the wall of falling water, we finally made it to the dirt road where my home lay. Stands of trees far older than I stood proud and tall across the land and a line of t-shaped utility poles, barely visible in the downpour, stood in a line stretching out to the horizon like a hundred Galilean Saviors executed for telling people to love each other. I donned the hood from my rain jacket, secured my backpack and made a run for it, attempting to strike a balance between moving quickly and avoiding slipping in the mud as I made my way through the meteorological morass.
The bus pulled away as I climbed the stairs and entered the safe haven of our covered porch, my refuge from the heavenly barrage on the outside. My clothes were soaked despite the raincoat, so I carefully entered the house and began walking toward my room, trying in vain to keep from tracking wet footprints on the carpet. My parents, home early from their respective workplaces, sat in the living room with their eyes glued to the weather report on the screen. I walked through just in time to hear these words emanating from the television, “I repeat, Dalton county is under a tornado warning. All listeners should take cover at this time.”
Dad turned to me with a grim look on his face and nodded his head, “Mark, get the flashlight and the radio. We need to head to the storm shelter.”
Dropping my backpack in a haphazard pile on the floor, I ran to the laundry room and found the objects that dad desired. I fumbled about a bit, found some new batteries and began changing the older ones in the radio when I heard a sudden pop. Suddenly the house went dark, the blackness amplified even more by the lack of sunlight outside, leaving behind a Cimmerian shade of ninth plague intensity. Taken aback by the sudden change in light, I bobbled the batteries about before finally squeezing them into place.
My parents called out a bit worried from the darkness, “Mark, are you okay?”
Before answering I clicked the switch and the beam of light immediately appeared, slicing through the dark shade like the sharpest of blades. I turned it toward them, “Yeah, I’m fine. Are we ready to head out?” Mom and Dad rose to their feet and the three of us stumbled our way to the front door, our path lit by the lone shining bulb.
There is a strange moment in the life cycle of a tornado-producing storm in which the tempest ceases with a curious immediacy. Like a military force on the offensive calling for a sudden truce in the midst of bombarding their enemy with explosive blasts from above, the violent winds and bullets of rain and the cannonade of thunder had come to an abrupt stop, but it would very naïve to believe that this peace would be a lasting one. The unnaturally green sky above spoke of a battle plan yet to be fulfilled, a surprise attack under the false auspices of peace. It was as though the celestial force was looking to lull us into complacency with its calm admonitions before unleashing its most devastating attack upon us. I was taken aback by the unusual and almost stifling stillness in the air as I stepped into the yard, but there was a definite sense of foreboding that overshadowed all and that kept my feet moving toward the storm shelter, for it was obvious all was not right, that there was still a monster lurking behind the overcast skies who was waiting to pounce.
Dad opened the heavy metal door and ushered the two of us into the dark underground enclosure, whose concrete walls were sure to protect us from the forces at work above. Mom clicked on the radio and found their favorite country music station and we settled into the folding lawn chairs which had lain dormant for the past year. The light illuminated our shelter, keeping the darkness at bay but doing little to calm our nerves as we awaited the onslaught that was sure to come. I wasn’t sure if was a cruel twist of fate or a practical joke committed in poor taste, but for some odd reason Garth Brooks’ “The Thunder Rolls” began playing through the static on the old battery powered radio. Just as Garth reached the chorus crescendo, singing “The thunder rolls and the lightning strikes,” the weather warning cut him off in mid-word, with a loud beep followed by a familiar robotic voice: “The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for Dalton County. All residents should take cover now.”
Almost as if on cue the rain started again, this time joined by hail, and together they pounded away at the metal door above us with machine gun-like ferocity. I cowered in my chair with an unmitigated fear that the storm would somehow, someway reach us in our fortified, underground base. Thunder exploded like great and fiery bombs dropped from above and I wondered if this was what it was like to be in a war, waiting for your probable death in an underground shelter. Or perhaps this was the voice of an angry God, like that in Brother John’s ranting sermons, chastising his people for their insolence and promising their destruction at his violent whims.
Dad looked at me kindly and reached out one hand, “Don’t worry, son. It will be okay.”
Tears of terror filled my eyes as I looked up at him, “How do you know?”
“I don’t. None of us can know for sure what will happen, but I believe we’ll get through this. Storms are a part of life. Sometimes they frighten us and move on and sometimes they hurt us, they take things away from us, but we just have to keep on. It’s all that we can do.”
I nodded my head, but the image of Brother John’s red-faced, rage-filled stories of divine holocausts remained imprinted on my mind. Could we be living in Sodom and Gomorrah like he often claimed, just biding our time until suffering the burning death of fire and brimstone? What have we done to deserve this? Have we not been good and faithful servants? We try to follow His laws and precepts and commandments, so why has this punishment come to us?
The rushing sound of the wind had been building for some time, from its early whistling to a steady roar to its now deafening intensity. I have often heard it said that a tornado sounds like a rumbling railroad, its noise level blocking out all else, but I can tell you it is far worse, far more terrible than some man-made contraption. As the wind reached its crescendo I thought back to that story from church about the spirit of God coming upon the people like a mighty wind. But this wind was not bestowing gifts, it was enacting devastation. Yes, it was a mighty wind indeed.
With the overpowering sound echoing in my ears, I bowed my head, closed my eyes and began to pray. “Oh God,” I began, “please, please save us from the storm. Please save our home and our family. I am sorry for all I have done, please God, just save us. Please,” I cried out, “save us. Save my family, save our home. In Jesus name, amen.” My faith was strong, my confidence was restored and I believed that God would take care of us.
The sounds of crashing thunder and roaring winds continued for the next several minutes as the three of us sat huddled together in the dark, waiting whatever fate had been bestowed on us. It was impossible for us to gauge the situation above ground, for all we knew came from the sounds resonating around us. Dad’s face was grim, his eyes a bit turned down, but still he managed a loving, half-hearted smile when he looked at me and answered my silent question, “It’s almost over, Mark.”
Soon the winds had died down enough that we could hear the static on the radio and then, with a commanding voice that burst through the snowy cloud, the announcer spoke, “It seems as though the worst has passed us in Dalton County, but listeners should stay in their shelters until the tornado warning has been lifted. I repeat, remain protected until the warning has been lifted.”
Mom looked at me with a look of concern on her face, “Mark, we made it.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“It’s over.”
“Yeah.” We sat in a silent for a minute, but I still had images of Brother John proclaiming divine judgment still running through my head. “Mom, do you ever wonder if tornadoes and things are God’s punishment?”
“Well,” she was obviously startled by my question, “I don’t know. I guess they could be.”
“But,” dad interrupted, “sometimes things just happen and they don’t make sense.”
I was a little confused, “But Brother John always says that nothing happens outside of God’s plan.”
“God’s will,” continued Mom, “is not something that we can question or second-guess. All things turn out for good for those who believe.” She still saw the confused look on my face, though. “What do you think, honey?”
“I don’t know.”
“And that,” stated Dad, “is the best answer. We don’t know. We can’t know.”
Silence settled over the three of us again as we awaited the radio announcer’s all clear signal, but my thoughts were running wild. It was all so confusing to my juvenile mind. Did God know what was happening? Was it His plan? Was there a plan at all? Was He there? Was He punishing us? I had so many questions and so few answers. Everything was suddenly so uncertain and jumbled and nothing made sense.
It was at that time that the radio announcer came on again, this time interrupting the latest from George Strait, and made the announcement for which we had all been waiting. The danger was past. Normalcy and the relative calmness of everyday life had returned. Breathing a sigh of relief, Dad pushed the door open and climbed out of our protective bunker. Mom followed close behind and it was her voice that I heard first as I mounted the ladder to enter back into the real world. “Oh God,” she cried out in horror, “No! No!”
Hurriedly I pushed myself up the ladder and out of the storm shelter and that was when I saw my parents, standing with their arms around each other, staring at the ruins of our home, the house for which they had scrimped and saved and had bought before I was born. The home where I had resided my entire life. Mom, her face a mask of agonizing grief and pain, lay sobbing in Dad’s arms as he shook his head in shock and bereavement. A few of the inner walls still stood, but the rest lay in a heap with various boards and shingles and broken furniture. Toys from my upstairs bedroom lay strewn across the grass like some poorly organized yard sale along with clothes and appliances and other everyday items now rendered useless by the great fury of God. All was lost.
There must be some reason for this, I thought to myself. What could we have possibly done to deserve this? Why did He see fit to enact such terrible judgment upon us? I looked at the utter devastation around me, the warzone that once was our home, the end of an era in our family’s history and I cried. I cried for the tokens of happy memories now lost forever in the heap that was our home. I cried for my parents and for the years of hard work and toil that were now blown to pieces. It was gone, all gone. Casting my eyes downward, I again prayed, “Lord, why? Why has this happened to us? What did we do? Oh, Lord, please answer me!”
But the only sound was the wind.