A Stormy Night (02/09/2024)

Last evening was supposed to be February meeting for our parish’s Council of Catholic Women. As president, I needed to be there early to open and set up the social. I left home an hour ahead of time, stopped at the market to get a couple items for the social, and noticed as I drove how threatening the sky looked. As I was driving to the church, the lightning started. Shortly afterwards, the tornado sirens went off. I walked around the center to find the safest place, in the event I needed it. The phone rang; it was a member asking if we were going to meet. Then my phone started pinging with weather alerts and texts from my family. This was not the plan!

I called a couple of members whose numbers I knew and told them to stay home. Then I walked to the front door to send any arrivals home to safety. Three women in total showed up. I felt badly for the women who had made treats for our social. We chatted for a bit before I sent them back home to safety. While I was standing out there, the sirens went off again. I locked up the facility and drove home. My husband was very glad to see me when I came in. He’d just heard a tornado hit a nearby community.

I had to completely replan the approach to our parish community soup supper which I had hoped to get help for at the meeting. I sent out an email to all our members asking for their help. And shortly afterwards, responses started to come in.

Last night I realized all over again that planning doesn’t make it so. Life comes with multiple variables over which we have no control. That’s why a planner’s notebook has multiple pages and why the initial plan is called Plan A. We must learn to be flexible. As I stood there last evening alone in the storm, realizing I was going to need to adapt and that most of the members were not going to come because of the storm, I remembered one of my favorite lines from Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job, Book III: He who refuses to bend can never lift.

As Christians, as followers of Christ, we cannot be rigid. The Way requires us to be agile and adaptive according to the needs of those whom we encounter in Christ’s name. Christ came to call sinners and, in the process, ate with sinners. He didn’t stand aloof and rigid scolding the imperfect; He sat with them, loving them, and inviting them to follow Him. And when He saw that they were hungry, He fed them rather than sending them home hungry because there were too many. His compassion for them as well as His willingness to share all He was and had with others was sufficient. The feeding of the multitude was not the disciples’ Plan A. But Christ showed us through example what can be when we minister to others with loving kindness rather than judgments and ultimatums.

As we go forward, continuing our journeys of faith, hope and love, let us open ourselves to the Spirit who helps us to read the signs of the times and the needs of others in our midst. Let us seek to bring all we’ve been given through grace and gifts to the journey including the graces of love that allow us to bend when needed so that we might lift those who have stumbled or are in need. Let us recognize that our plan may have to change when life happens around us.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.