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AFTER THE STORM
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “After the Storm!”
The theme of “storm” ties together today’s first reading and today’s gospel. Think about storms and what happened to you as a result of storms.
QUESTIONAIRE
Looking at your life, what have been the storms you’ve experienced?
Were you out in the bay on a boat – and a sudden storm came up?
Were you in a plane and lightning was striking, winds were howling and the pilot was having trouble trying to land the plane? Then all clapped when he or she announced, “Phew! We made it folks.”
Were you ever in an earthquake, a hurricane, a really crippling snow storm?
Did Isabel – the big 2003 hurricane storm here in Annapolis and elsewhere damage your rugs and your foundations?
Have you experienced a sudden shock because of a death or a divorce – a total surprise that shook the foundations of your faith and soul?
Have you ever lost a job – been fired – and you didn’t see it coming and it took a lot to get up off the floor and start again?
Have you ever been accused of something falsely – and the mud stuck for the longest time?
Looking at your life what have been the storms you’ve experienced?
Looking at your life, did you change as a result of a storm? How so?
MEMORIES
We all have memories of storms – nature’s storms as well as inner psychological storms.
I remember a summer Sunday afternoon. I’m a kid at Bliss Park in Brooklyn. We’re up on the hill under our favorite tree on a blanket eating sandwiches and having tea in red cups from our well used family thermos bottle. (Do they still make those thermos bottles?I remember being fascinated by the silver mirro insides.) Suddenly, a summer storm came at us. There I was a small kid running, running, home – being drenched and soaked in my t-shirt, shorts and sneakers – and beating everyone home – but the door was locked and I didn’t have a key.
I remember a summer vacation moment. I was in an aluminum canoe with a cousin at the wrong end of Little Sebago Lake in Maine and a really nasty lightning storm came up.
Like everyone I’ve experienced deaths and various other kinds of storms. As priest I’ve heard people tell me how they lost everything because of a flooding or a divorce. I remember a nun telling about being in her convent on the coast of Louisiana and the loudspeakers starting screaming at 2 AM in the morning – telling everyone to immediately get outside and get out of here – because a big hurricane is heading right in this direction. This was well before all the TV monitors and tracking equipment. The whole group got into a bus in bathrobes, pajamas and slippers, and got out of there and the whole convent building went out into the Gulf of Mexico.
TODAY’S READINGS
In today’s first reading Elijah is running for his life – hiding from the soldiers of Ahab and Jezebel who are hunting him down – and he hides out in a cave.
This story from First Kings can be used for reflection on where God is in the struggles of life that might be chasing us.
Yes, we cry out to God when the storm crashes into us. “Oh my God!” Everyone, even the atheist, in the moment of crash and crush says, “Holy!” something.
Elijah is hiding in a cave in the mountain for shelter and he hears God telling him to leave the cave and stand outside on a ledge or the edge of the mountain. He has 4 experiences: wind, earthquake, fire and then a tiny whispering sound. And the story in First Kings ends this way: “When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.”
What is this story in the First Book of Kings trying to tell us?
I’m not sure – but what I take from it – is the reality of “Afterwards!”
What we do afterwards – after the storm – after the death – after the accident – after the hellish nightmare can help us see where the big truths are. Yes, people come to church – yes people scream at God and to God when the storm is raging – but what do we do afterwards?
It’s my experience that it’s good if people take alone time – escape time – quiet time – mountain time – cave time – after storms – to sort things out.
Every time I have a chance to talk to someone who just lost a loved one – I tell them, “Make sure you walk!” I say, “Take time to be alone and walk in the early morning or early evening. Walk. Our family has done this big time when we lost each other.”
I say, “Breathe. Catch your breath.”
“Listen. Listen carefully to the quiet breeze.”
In today’s second reading from Romans Paul makes a similar observation when he tells folks he joins his “conscience with the Holy Spirit in bearing me witness that I have great sorrow and constant anguish of heart.”
We don’t have to go it alone.
One great prayer is, “Come Holy Spirit!” After a great tragedy, take a rosary and just sit there or walk somewhere and say and pray on each bead slowly, “Come Holy Spirit!” breathing in and out.
One of the words for the Spirit is “ruah” in Hebrew. It means breath, air, wind. It's the breath of God, the wind of God, that God sent, blew, pushed, out into over the waters, into the darkness, into the emptiness, and God's word, the breath of his mouth, yelled, "Let there be light!" And on and on God created the heavens and the earth. [Cf. Genesis 1:2] Another Hebrew word is "naphach." It’s what God breathed into the first human He made as described in the Book of Genesis. [Cf. Genesis 2:7]
That text in Genesis is very real. When a baby is born, they want to make sure it’s breathing. When someone is dying, we see how their breathing can be labored – and then they take their last breath.
Breathe in and out! That’s one of the most basic spiritual practices.
When you come into church – after the Holy Water and the sign of the cross to renew your baptism – sit down, close your eyes, and breathe, to renew the gift of life you received at birth from your mom.
Prayer is gently breathing in the Spirit of God – and walking or being with God.
In today’s gospel from Matthew we have one of the several gospel stories about storms on the Lake.
Commentators have various takes on this scene. Artists love the scene for big canvas paintings.
Taking it to prayer, I see the scene to be everyone’s scene when a storm hits our life.
Matthew tells us Jesus is alone in prayer on a mountain – just like Elijah in the first reading. The disciples, the church, all of us are out here in the storm – and Jesus comes to be with us in the storm.
Jesus utters the words we need to hear, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Peter speaks out for all of us, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And Jesus calls Peter to “Come!” Peter does and then falters and then screams the second, the deeper prayer, “Lord, save me!”
And Jesus tells us that we don’t have enough faith and we have too much doubt.
Then the gospel tells us the wind died down.
The storm ends.
It’s then that they realize, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”
It’s the same realization that the centurion made at Calvary – after that storm was over he realized, “Truly this was the Son of God.”
CONCLUSION
My conclusion would be: yes there are storms in this life; but there is also the afterwards – the picking up the pieces. Everything might look like hell – but when we see people working together to recover, we get glimpses of heaven.
My stress would be the importance of afterwards.
The other day I wrote a short poem or piece that hit me during my morning shower – this was two days before I put together this first draft homily. Let me close with a first draft of that poem. It’s entitled, “Afterwards!”
AFTERWARDS
Afterwards,
aftertaste,
afterthought,
after all
is said and done,
who said
there isn’t a hell;
who said
we can't work
to make
a heaven as well?
* Picture on top of a street in Derry, Northern Ireland - after the storm of years of "The Troubles" there. May 2008. To see picture up close, put your mouse cursor arrow on the picture and tap, tap, with your mouse. The painting on the wall is a drawing of "Guernica" by Picasso. Guernica is the small Basque village in Northern Spain that was bombed and attacked with approval by Franco in 1937. Pablo Picasso was asked to do the centerpiece for the Spanish Pavillion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris - and after hearing about Guernica he rushed to his studio and did this large painting. Using Google or whatever search engine you use, type in "Guernica" and study this painting and its meanings, etc.
