On Joplin and Holes

I'm currently sitting in my parents' loft condo in downtown Joplin, Missouri, listening to the quiet hum of the AC and watching the traffic lights change over empty streets down Fourth Street. Being here with the kids for the last almost-week has been lovely--great casual, hanging out time; lots of eating (particularly many variations of chocolate); walks with strollers; shopping for things that Grandma and Grandpa like to spoil their grandkids with (thank you, Thomas the Tank Engine and Co.).

This is the one time this year we--we meaning us Olsons minus Papa, unfortunately--could make it down here. And this is the one time this year I think we most needed to be here. Yes, there's a lot of big, happy family events coming up this summer, and it's nice to have no particular reason to get together. But this is also just a few weeks shy of the one year anniversary of the tornado that destroyed about one-third of Joplin.

On May 22, 2011, at 5:41 p.m., an E-5 tornado touched down here and blew a hole roughly six miles long and one mile wide out of a residential and commercial district. It's hard to articulate what this looked like; you can look on my parents' immediate experiences with this here and Papa's thoughts after visiting Joplin here.

One of the first days we were here, Mom and I and the kids went over to Cunningham Park. It includes a neat-o playground modeled after Joplin in its early years, a pond with a zillion tadpoles in it, a memorial to the volunteers who have helped after the tornado (a big ring with "the miracle of the human spirit" showcases that part), and a memorial to those who lost their lives in the tornado. It's poignant and special, and not just because of what's in the park itself. The park is also in the tornado zone, so surrounding it are streets, new construction, a lot of bare space, a few homes still not torn down after the storm, and no mature trees. About a quarter of a mile from the park sits the ravaged hulk of St. John's, the hospital that sustained a direct hit from the storm. Its glassless windows, with curtains still swaying in the breeze, look out to a gaping hole where thousands lived and worked. It's eerie and taxing to look around and see so much nothing, and to still see such a gaping wound such as St. John's, for even though people are slowly coming back to the zone to live and work--even a temporary hospital in trailers sits near the vacant building as a new hospital is completed a few miles away--no amount of time or replacement can bring back what was lost here.

One of the many things we've done in the last month or so since I've blogged was attend the annual Vine and Branches conference in Lakefield. This year, we heard from a panel of experts about what suffering means to God's people. Where is God in the midst of suffering? How do we deal with suffering as humans? As Christians? What should we say to those who are or have suffered? A few ideas that stood out for me dealt with how we help those who suffer. One way is not to say anything, because too often, we compound others' suffering by thoughtless, foolish comments, much like Job's "friends." Basically, people need to know that we're here for them, over and over again, in ways small and concrete, like in hugs and pies. They don't need to hear our stupid explanations of why particular tragedies happen--a pointless exercise known in theological circles as theodicy, or our attempts to explain how God and bad stuff exist together. They don't need to hear us tell them how to "get over" their suffering or how to speed grieving along. They don't need us to write off their experiences so we can get back to our fast, "normal" lives. They need our presence to reassure them that they are still here, and that God is still here, after the holes have left their vacant, terrible ruptures on their bodies, hearts, lives.

As humans, we shudder when we encounter real suffering that defies easy description: the abuse of children, the physical pain of terminal illness, the wreckage of one home next door to one unscathed. How can God possibly love us when He brings "all the evil" upon Job (42:11)--and, in truth, upon us? What kind of a God would spare one child only to take another? When we see real suffering, we look upon the darkest, most difficult realities of our existence, and we in turn question our existence: who am I? Who is God? Will I survive this? Which is really another way of saying How do I even exist in the midst of such overwhelming suffering that God--yes, even God who has created me--has heaped upon me?

And we have no concrete answer, but another hole--actually three.

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. (Luke 24:36-40)

Why did Jesus show his disciples his hands and his feet? Why not His elbow? Why, for Pete's sake, wasn't seeing His face enough to convince them that He was who they thought He was? Because the disciples knew Jesus had been crucified, that He had died. They had to see the holes to know that He who lived was actually He who had died.

We live an uneasy peace most times in our lives, busy and distracted by the mundane so that we do not have to think every second of every day about the fate that awaits us, the death that constantly draws nearer. Tragedy and deep suffering, like what the people of Joplin and so many others bear, remind us of this in ways we do not like to contemplate. Job bore the weight of God's hand in his suffering--"Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!" he wails, telling them about the terrible burden God brought upon him (for the Devil could do nothing to Job without God's involvement).
But we who have been drowned in baptismal waters in order to live do not have to fear the reminders or even the suffering itself. We see the holes, and we remember Who lives despite them, He who lives and who promises us life eternal after the holes, He who heals our holes with His own. 

I think on this, after another train has passed nearby, its long wail the only punctuation in an otherwise still night. More trials will come here to Joplin, because trials in this life await us all. But all the holes that we have and will have, bear and do bear, rest in Christ's holes, too. And in this we trust, and wait, and know we are not alone, and never will be.