Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

I apologize in advance to any of my readers who still use RSS updates to read; I’m sure you have gotten some really strange outputs from me lately. It was due to furniture moving around as we updated my site. It was a goal I set for myself in July, but didn’t accomplish until…October. But it is accomplished now. You will notice that the shop isn’t active yet- I hope to get it active soon- Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise. 

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And, oh, how it rose.

I can’t even express how bizarre it has been as someone who used to live near an East Coast beach town and rode out half a dozen hurricanes to see the sheer destruction of Helene’s aftermath here in the mountains where I live. East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia were hit hard- the Western end of North Carolina taking the worst of it. We live just over the ridge from all of that, and a hospital here was flooded clear to its roof so rapidly that patients and staff required helicopter rescue. You probably saw not so flattering news about one of our factories here too.  Our town was the only one to not lose power and water- every single town around us lost some form of power and water for nearly a week, and some still don’t have it yet. (As of Nov 19, only very isolated areas of Western NC remain without power. Ashville still does not have full water. Nov 26- Ashville does have water, now, finally.)  The farther up our ridge you go, the worst it gets; some of the small towns, villages, and hamlets tucked into the ridges and valleys will go much longer before it is fully restored. And that isn’t even over the North Carolina line, yet. That’s just East Tennessee.

It is very strange right now to be driving through the beautiful fall scenery the Appalachians are so well known for and then turn around a bend in the hill and come on destruction of the likes of Lord of the Rings- the orc army tearing down Isengard to hatch their dastardly kin. Giant piles of trees burning in the aftermath of mudslides and landslides…the scar riven deep into the hills we so love. It will take years. It has been so hard on so many here, and it is hard not to feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the need and the rebuilding.

For us personally- we’ve all been wrestling with it in our own ways. The simple fact is, we weren’t close to being prepared. Not that you could have prepared for the sheer immensity of what Helene turned out to be, but we weren’t prepared for even the slightest of storms. Prior to a decade ago, and the kids getting so sick, being prepared for the rural, rugged life sans power was just a way of life for us, as it is for so many here. We may be living in the 21st century, sure, but the Appalachians have always been isolated, and needing to provide for yourself has been a byword here for centuries.

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How do you live with death?

That’s the crux of it, really. We have become so cocooned in our modern lives that we forget the wider world, and the Divine. And then a hurricane rips through. Or a devastating illness. We are forced to remember then how close we live to the edge of things, and how the veil gets so thin between the now and the eternal.

Are you ready?

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Hurricane or illness will visit you.

I know this. I’ve lived this.

The thing is, the fire and brimstone preachers of my youth would always bandy this question at you like arrows. Are you ready? Aren’t you scared? You need to get saved. Get that fire insurance. Get that flood insurance. Come to the altar. Time is running out. You don’t want to suffer do you?

As if, by some simple act, we could bypass suffering. As if we could tear away the fascia of our sin-soaked world and escape it.  Muscle through. Crawl out only bones, clean and fresh.

And what would that be? Not fully human. Not made in His image.

No. We must be all of it, embodied. Fully.

Suffering and suffered. Happy, sad, angry, amazed, surprised. The whole spectrum of emotion. And if we are human? Most likely scarred by suffering.

Scarred like the Appalachian hills right now.

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I don’t think, in the widest sense, after living through the decade I’ve been through, that you ever really can be prepared for these things, and in some sense, I beginning to accept that we shouldn’t want to. I think-sometimes-that our desire to be prepared, be ready for anything, control for every eventuality, is really just a shadow for pride. We want the control. We want to make our own perfection, at least how we see it. How we think the world should be. Or at least our own tiny slice of it. We keep stepping farther and farther into our own will, our own knowledge, flawed as it is, instead of leaning into the infinitely wise Will of God. And then we keep running, though we don’t realize it- from God.

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In the end, meditating on it…I just want to live wisely in the moment given me, and try not to be fearful of the future and the things we cannot control. Whether it’s a hurricane or an illness…I think there’s a fine line between being wisely prepared in as much as one can be, and another side of the coin where we are so consumed with our desire to be prepared and in control that we start breaking fellowship and relationship with the people around us. I think I’ve lived on the negative side of that coin for longer than I care to admit.

I am in no way criticizing the desire to be prepared, be strong, do what we can. Don’t mistake that. I just think there is a point where we just have to be honest with ourselves and trust God regardless, whether we are ready for a big storm in our lives or not and stop trying to make something we’re experiencing fit into some pre-formed box of expectations in our head- that doesn’t leave any room for the Holy Spirit to breathe and move.

It is becoming clear that someone I dearly love is beginning the slow walk towards their repose. In the end, there is really nothing I can do, except walk alongside. And oh, my dears, it is terribly frightening.  I won’t ever deny that. Yet on the other hand, I take into consideration these verses from the Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 4.

But the righteous, though they die early, will be at rest.

For old age is not honored for length of time,

or measured by number of years;

but understanding is gray hair for anyone,

and a blameless life is ripe old age.

 There were some who pleased God and were loved by him,

and while living among sinners were taken up.

 They were caught up so that evil might not change their understanding

or guile deceive their souls.

I am seeing with my worldly eyes, but these verses remind me that it is not for me to hold on to this person so tightly that I cannot let them go forward and into the hands of God. They will run like a spark through straw, and I will behold the Glory of the Lord. It is enough.