Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Two weeks ago this Saturday night, I was starting to doze off when it sounded like a semi had pulled up outside my window. Then, just as I was beginning to process what I thought was the sound of thunder in the distance, I realized my bed was shaking. And it wan't just my bed. The walls were shaking, and it seemed as though I could hear the sound of everything - and I mean everything - in my house shaking. The pictures on the walls made noise, my closet doors rattled, and it sounded like bee bee pellets were rolling across the attic.One of my cats, who had been sleeping next to me on the bed, took off for the stairs as my other cat came out from under the bed and followed in hot pursuit.

And I just lay there thinking, "So this is what an earthquake feels like." Well, that was my first thought. My second was, "We don't have earthquakes like this in Oklahoma."

Apparently, we do now.

It turned out it was a 5.6, and while there was some damage near the epicenter -- which was about 60 miles away -- it didn't do much more than rattle people (pardon the pun) around here. There had been a foreshock much earlier in the day, while most of us were asleep. A number of people I know felt some shaking during the night, and I was a little disappointed that I had slept though it. That was before we knew it was a foreshock -- I didn't even realize there was such a thing. (Blogger's spell-check doesn't know there's such a thing either.)

By Monday, as tornado warnings were in effect over parts of Oklahoma which we're accustomed to -- but not so much in November -- the joke was that we still had a few weeks left in hurricane season. Could a hurricane be next?

Not a normal Oklahoma snow!

It's been that kind of year. We had snow in February that would rival snowstorms in Chicago. As a matter of fact, the same storm hit Chicago later in the week. It actually paralyzed snow-savvy Chicago, although not nearly as long as it paralyzed us. By the following week, with close to two feet of snow on the ground, we had temperatures that would rival those in International Falls, Minnesota. Thanks to the heat island, Tulsa only got down to about 13 below at its coldest, but outlying areas were 20-30 degrees below zero.

That's not anywhere close to a normal Oklahoma winter, and I knew that did not bode well for the coming summer. Sure enough, July and August brought temperatures that would rival those in Death Valley. My sister pointed out to me long ago that whenever we have extremely hot summers, they are either preceded or followed by extremely cold winters...and vice versa. I pulled my phone out and called her at her home in Minnesota one afternoon in August when I got into my car and the thermometer read 125 degrees. It was a rare summer in that it seemed few people had tans because no one wanted to spend time in the sun, and even a fake tan was too. much. trouble. Area lakes brought no comfort because the heat and the drought (oh, yeah, we're still in the midst of a drought) combined to cause algae to grow on at least 3 of the nearby lakes. Yuck.

While we have the occasional colder-than-normal winter, the occasional hotter-than-usual summer, and even the occasional drought, this year's extremes exceeded anything I've ever experienced in Oklahoma. While we have the occasional record-breaking snowfall, this year's snow totals broke records for the entire season. It was particularly jarring in that most of it came over a 10-day period. And while we're used to tornadoes and the uncertainty they bring to our lives, we were stunned when a large portion of Joplin was destroyed just across the state line on Mothers Day.

But the earthquake was different. While a 5.6 is big for Oklahoma - the biggest ever recorded in the state - it doesn't compare to earthquakes in California, or Japan, or Turkey, or Chili, or any of the other places that have experienced much larger earthquakes. It didn't kill anyone, or cause anything more than minor injuries. It damaged some homes and buildings, but it didn't destroy large portions of cities, or take out entire neighborhoods. It was different largely because it wasn't something we're used to dealing with. There was an aftershock a couple of nights later that was the same magnitude as the foreshock, a 4.7, but it came early enough in the evening that most of us felt it. It wasn't as loud, and it didn't last long, but it sure got our attention.

As the ground stopped shaking and as I realized my second experience with an earthquake was over, I thought about how God sometimes reaches into our lives and shakes things up to get our attention. And while that can be a little scary, it can also be exciting...like an earthquake.

I just hope he doesn't have a 6.0 up his sleeve. ;-)

Until next time,
Margaret

"I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory," says the Lord Almighty. ~ Haggai 2:7

Murphy's Law

The events of the past week have been incomprehensible, beginning with a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan, followed by a tsunami that wiped out entire towns, and now a nuclear crisis. As we watch the pictures, it's hard to believe it's real. The home videos of the tsunami look like special effects from a disaster movie.

There are those who say it's God's judgment. I don't agree with that but I do believe it's the result of living in an imperfect world. That said, I also believe the images of the past week, including what's happening right now at the nuclear plant in Fukushima are a vivid illustration of sin in our lives.

When I was in the 8th grade, the local electric company announced plans to build a nuclear power plant 30 miles east of the city. It would be named Black Fox, which sounded like an appropriate name for a plant in Oklahoma. But over the next 9 years, as opposition to the plant grew, the name came to sound very ominous.

As I neared my 20th birthday, the plant had still not been built, and a couple of things happened that spring to draw everyone's attention to the protests. The first was the release of the movie, The China Syndrome, about safety issues at a fictional nuclear plant. That same month, there was the all-too-real accident at Three-Mile Island.

By now, I was paying full attention to the issue, and I agreed with local protesters that the dangers of a nuclear power plant were too great. While I never joined their efforts, I admired their tenacity, particularly that of Carrie Barefoot Dickerson, who led the fight. By 1982 the power company gave up their plans for Black Fox.

A few years later came the disaster at Chernobyl, and I was again relieved that Black Fox had never been completed. But 25 years went by without another major event at a nuclear plant - although there have been other accidents - and like many people, I didn't give nuclear power a lot of thought.

Then, a couple of years ago, as it became more obvious that we needed to be considering alternative energy sources, I began to wonder if maybe Black Fox should have been completed. "Sure," I thought, "things could go wrong, but they hardly ever do go wrong. Maybe nuclear power isn't really all that dangerous." Those who planned the various nuclear plants that have been built along fault lines probably told themselves the same thing.

Source: Google Images

That's exactly how sin works. "Sure, things could go wrong, but they hardly ever do go wrong," we tell ourselves. I know even the word "sin" causes some of you to cringe. Too often, we see use of the word itself as judgment. While we all acknowledge the big sins - sins against children, sins of violence, we tend the minimize the sins we see as small sins, or the sins that we don't believe affect others.

But that's the problem. Just as radiation escaping from the plant in Fukushima could potentially affect people beyond the immediate area, our sins can have an impact beyond ourselves. Sin is what separates us from God, but it also separates us from others, as it impacts our relationships. All sin can do that, from those we see as "small" all the way to the Big 10. Sin can permeate our culture and impact generations.

Just as those who approved and built nuclear power plants on fault lines convinced themselves the dangers could be controlled, we think we can control sin. And while we tell ourselves that the sin we're considering giving into is not that dangerous, the truth is we never know when the ground will begin to shift beneath our feet, or when the wave will overcome us, or when the safety mechanisms we thought were in place will fail.

Fortunately we have a God who forgives. We have a Savior.

Lord, please help those who are harm's way in Japan because we foolishly thought we could outsmart nature. Lord, forgive us our arrogance. Forgive us our greed. Forgive us our short-sightedness. Lord, have mercy.

Praying continually for the people of Japan,

Margaret

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. ~ Romans 8:5-6