Hurricanes and Humility
It’s that season again. And we’re once again on what feels like a weather roller coaster, going up and down with sickening lurches and almost unable to tear our eyes away from our screens, searching desperately for the next update. Frankly, I find it exhausting. Maybe you do too.
But what do hurricanes show us?
If you immediately thought the storm reminded you that you need to clean out your freezer because it’s so stuffed you can’t hardly close the door, you’re not alone. But that’s not what I’m referring to.
What it brings to mind for me is humility.
Yes, humility.
Why? Because we humans are funny birds. We get all caught up in whatever is the most pressing thing on our agenda. Whatever fire needs to be put out. And along the way, we lose our sense of wonder that we are alive at all.
We get so immersed in our daily lives and frantic worries that we lose track of the fact that we are SO SMALL. We are a blip on the screen of the cosmos. If you have ever stayed up late (or gotten up early) enough to gaze at the stars and the sky maybe you know what I mean. One look at that vast expanse of inky blackness studded with tiny lights all of the sudden I remember that I am only one note in this symphony of life. It’s humbling. And honestly, corrective.
It’s easy to place ourselves at the center of our own universe. And I suspect that sometimes being the star in our own movie gives us an overinflated sense of our own importance. It does to me. I don’t mean to lose the larger vision of what it means to be alive today but I simply do in the minutia of day-to-day living and coping with everything that comes my way. I suspect it happens to a lot of us.
Hurricanes remind us that we are NOT in control.
No.
We’re really not.
And this truth is a reminder for us. A reminder to be humble. A reminder that we can rely on grace to get us through. We MUST rely on grace. Because after all, we can’t always choose our circumstances or the curve balls that life throws us. I mean, who would choose a hurricane?
But we most certainly can choose our response. And when we respond with grace, we beget more grace and it’s a landslide from there. Grace, grace, grace, all around us, as far as the eye can see. And THIS is sanctuary in action as a daily practice and way of being in the world.
How are you doing over there? Did you make it through the last couple of storms okay? Even those of us who aren’t living in North Carolina or Florida are feeling it these days. I’d love to hear from you. And in the meantime, I’m sending you a whole boatload of grace.
With love and gratitude,
Lisa