Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing.
-Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
The events of the past few months would have been unimaginable in early June. There seems to have been a flurry of natural disasters lately: two major hurricanes have decimated the gulf coast, an earthquake has hit Pakistan with devastating effect, mudslides have wiped entire Guatemalan towns off the map, floods have submerged large parts of New Jersey just in the last week. In addition to these large scale disasters, this summer has been full of “little earthquakes” that have re-shaped the very structure of my family. Within the span of a month I gained a brother-in-law, lost a brother and welcomed a daughter into the world. As I randomly picked up a book of short stories late last night, in order to pass the time while the aforementioned daughter had one of her tantrums, I came across the story of four men struggling for survival in a life boat off the coast of Florida during a violent storm. The one line above caught my attention and got me thinking. “Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing,” meaning that they never come at an opportune moment, they never come when you are prepared for them. Shipwrecks, personal disasters, natural disasters, fires, floods, the death of loved ones, always seem to happen when you are least prepared and least equipped to deal with them. They always seem to come during a busy season, or they come stacked one on top of the other, or they come during the holidays, you can almost bet that there will be circumstances conspiring to make a bad situation worse.
Michele and I were coming down the home stretch of that long and uncomfortable road of a pregnancy, we were painting murals on the wall of Caitlyn’s room, we were preparing ourselves to receive a new member of our family, with all the labors of caring for an infant. Life seemed to be going along pretty much as usual and then at four in the morning on July 23, 2005 my mother, awake for some reason that only worried mothers will ever understand, found my younger brother Jonathan dead in his room. At that moment the life of our family was thrown into utter turmoil and distress. It wasn’t the sheer shock of Jon’s death, the storm that took his life had been raging for some time, we knew the boat was taking on water, but nevertheless, with optimistic faith, we thought somehow we would make it through and all hands would safely reach the harbor. “Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing,” they don’t care about your other plans; they don’t care what else is going on. In the wee hours of that morning our family was dashed into a million pieces between the thundering surf and the jagged rocks.
When shipwrecks strike you realize that you can never truly be prepared for such a thing. Regardless of the strange familiarity that pastors tend to develop with death, dying and grief, regardless of the psychological and theological training that we go through, the death of a loved one still throws us under the raging surf. Simple, basic faith, “mere Christianity,” was the life preserver that got us out of the water and on to shore. The storm passed and left our family sitting on a foreign shore with one less member. What do we do now? That seems to be the question. The answer in large part is: we grieve, but for Michele and I there was the small matter of a new baby coming, ready or not. It occurred to me that in most good shipwreck stories, or disaster movies, (including one of my new favorite TV shows, Lost) there’s always a pregnant lady on the verge of labor. In most of these stories the birth gives the survivors something to think about other than their own sorry plight and it is no different with us. The birth of a new child is at once a wonderful counterpoint to and a bittersweet reminder of the death of my brother but in that too God’s hand is present. Shipwrecked we may be, but new life constantly shouts that we are not alone.
We call these disasters “acts of God” but really the “acts of God” are more clearly seen in the lives that are preserved. In the hurricanes God’s action came through the thousands of people who helped complete strangers, in my brother’s death God’s action came through the strength of my family and the community of faith that surrounded us. The disasters are simply disasters the way God acts in them is through protecting, comforting and encouraging those who survive. It is beyond our authority to question how God acts in disasters like hurricanes and drug overdoses, we may find ourselves chastised like Job if we spend too much time on that one. But surely if we look at how God acts in the face of disasters we will find the comfort of His power and truth. As we baptized Cate there seemed to be a sort of bookend to this stormy summer (the Greek word for baptize is the same word used to describe the sinking of a ship). In the sacrament there is much to comfort and encourage us. We are shipwrecked but God lifts us up. We are reminded by the baptism of Jesus himself, by his life, death and resurrection that even in death God has won the victory. The grief is still there and considerable pain but we know that God’s hand acts in the midst of deep disaster. God’s action is apropos of everything.
