Stormy Weather

Flood photo from Fema library of photos -- public domain

The newspaper has been running articles about the flood of 2006 here in our neck of the woods.   It's been five years.  We had water in the basement.  Probably 3 to 3 1/2 feet of it.  The furnace had to be replaced.  THAT was an expensive outcome.  I lost most of my photographs.  People were killed in that flood, driving off highways that were washed out.  I remember driving home one night after dark.  It was really scary.  The rain coming down in sheets, and it was very difficult to see the road.  People lost their homes, some even watched them float away in the water. 

After a flood like that, I am always amazed at the response of the community.  There is, of course an outpouring of generosity from some, and pulling together to get through things.  But very often, people look to blame someone after the fact.  We are the "intelligent" people who feel the need to build homes at the edge of waterways.  We know where the flood plains are, and yet...still.

2006 was a dreadful year for many.  It was a dreadful year for me.  I had fallen into a deep depression, some days just not able to push to get out of bed.  The rising waters seemed to be in league with the rising hopeless and grief that was inside of me.  Something changed for me that year.  I think most specifically, I felt as though I lost this wonderful gift of faith that I had known all of my life.  There had always been miracles and syncronicities around every corner.  Having grown up in so much fear and violence, I've always struggled with depression.  But the connection to God, to Jesus, to Spirit always kept me full of faith and helped me to bounce back.  Somehow those amazing little gifts of the holy in the everyday ordinary, had ceased to shimmer.  What was the message?  I was supposed to grow up I suppose.  But the years since then have been so full of wrong turns, confusion and emptiness that I just don't understand what really happened.  Two of the people who had been such strong friends, who believed in me, who loved me deeply, are no longer part of my life in the same way.  And I find myself adrift.  It was my own doing.  

Life is ever full of change.  And the only thing any of us can do in the face of it, is to do our best to adapt, and to continue to love as best we can.  Chaos comes in the form of floods, tornados, illness, depression, violence, war, earthquakes...life is always shifting, creating new realities.  Will we be up for the challenge?