I’ve been sick this past week. At first, I thought it was a common cold, which isn’t a big deal. Three days arriving, three days here, three days departing. But then it went to my lungs, so I thought maybe it was bronchitis, which I tend to get this time of year. But then on Wednesday afternoon, I started feeling fevered and worried it was the flu, which surprised me because I had gotten my flu shot back in October. There are two types of flu you can get. There’s the harmless one that women and children get, and then there’s the near-death version that only men can get. And that’s the kind I had. But I’m better now, thank you very much.
If there’s a benefit to being sick, it’s how good you feel when you are no longer sick. It feels like the first nice day of spring with the daffodils in bloom. One day you’re slogging through slush, getting ice in your shoes, the next day the spring flowers break through the winter crust and the neighborhood children are riding their bicycles. Next Monday we’ll pass the midpoint of winter, and we’re coasting downhill after that. Every day more sunlight, more warmth, more promise.
I’ve always been fascinated by weather. If I weren’t a pastor, writer, or architect, I think I might have enjoyed being a meteorologist, the only job where it’s possible to be wrong half the time and still be highly regarded.
The most accurate weatherman I ever knew was a weatherwoman, Joan’s mother, Ruby Apple, who could sense weather fronts half a world away. My enduring memory of her is her standing on the back porch of the farmhouse, like a ship’s captain standing in the prow of the boat, peering to the west to read the clouds. She predicted the Blizzard of 1978 a month before anyone else, and purchased enough wallpaper to wallpaper her entire house, so they would have something to do when the blizzard hit.
What I remember about the storms of my youth was afterwards, when we would be sent outside to pick up the sticks in the yard. We had twenty-one large trees in our yard, and after every storm, we’d fan out across the yard to clean up the aftermath. We had a stick pile behind the barn and two or three times a year would have to burn it to make room for new sticks. There was never a storm that didn’t require the cleaning up of debris.
This past week marked one year that is the calamitous storm of Donald Trump’s second term. It feels as if the wind is blowing at gale force. The murder of a mother in Minneapolis on January 7th, the deranged rantings of an American president who seems determined to undo our historic treaties and alliances, who uses the Justice Department and the United States armed forces as his own personal police force, who lacks any semblance of morality or human decency, and now yesterday the beating and murder of a Minnesota citizen by ICE agents.
We are in the grip of a tremendous storm, which will not soon pass. To ignore or downplay our danger is foolish, akin to witnessing a tornado on the horizon, while denying the threat it poses.
Today, I want to talk about what you do when the storm is upon you, and what you do afterwards. These are the things I learned as a child from watching my parents. When the sky turned black and the lightning and thunder would roll in, my parents assumed responsibility for every child in our vicinity. Other children were not told to go to their home, but told to come into our home. They were to be removed from danger immediately. That just wasn’t true of my parents, it was true of every adult I knew. You went to the nearest house, where you stayed until it was safe to go back outside. I learned early on that when a storm was approaching you found a safe haven for yourself and became a safe haven for others.
It is increasingly clear that the institutions we’ve long depended upon to provide a safe haven for our society have instead become part of the storm. Our Supreme Court can no longer be trusted to provide the impartial application of justice. The FBI under the leadership of Kash Patel has forsaken its commitment to the rule of law, while the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is fanning the flames of bigotry. It is increasingly clear our own governor, Michael Braun, cares more about currying the favor of Donald Trump than supporting our state’s constitution.
In light of their lawlessness and their storm of indignities, it is imperative we do what our leaders are refusing to do—provide a safe haven for those battered by the winds of injustice. Just this week an email was sent out to our meeting asking for volunteers to help return people illegally detained to their homes. If you are able, please make yourself available to those who have been battered by this storm of tyranny.
This storm will pass. Storms always do. Then we will have to fan out across our community to clean up the aftermath. We will have to ensure that government works for the people and not against them. Some of us will have to run for office to stave off future storms. We will have to champion progressive tax policies that require the wealthy to give their share. The police departments that have cooperated with ICE to strip us of our rights must be held accountable, the military leaders who’ve followed unlawful orders must be court-martialed, the Congress persons who have failed to hold this Administration accountable must be impeached, and Donald Trump and his administration must be charged for every crime they have committed. The churches that have cheered on abuses should be identified and shunned by the larger Christian community. The damage they have caused is extensive. Cleaning up the debris they have left behind is our sacred and social obligation. This is our Quaker charge for when the storm comes─to be a safe haven, to hold the tyrant accountable, to fan out after the storm has passed and restore our community.