Tornado watch

What do you do when you just moved away from tornado alley – and tornadoes are touching down all around you?

You don’t do what you might think.

I hung pictures.

That is, I was deciding where to hang pictures when my husband called from work. “Did you know there’s a tornado warning in this county?” he asked. I turned on the TV. Actually, I turned on two TV’s, tuning them to different local channels. On both, Memphis weathermen told a sobering story. Colliding fronts were producing violent weather in Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. Several tornadoes had formed in our area, including one just southwest of Olive Branch, heading our direction.

While Jerry and his fellow workers gathered in an inner room on the lowest floor of their building, I listened closely to the TV reports – and chased cats.

Tessa, terrified of storms, kept hiding in places I couldn’t find her. Pewter, delighted with the game, kept running away from me and meowing to go outside. By the time I corralled both of them in an inner closet, the tornado threatening Olive Branch had vanished. The huge system spawning thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes had not.

At my request, my husband stopped on his way home to buy a hammer. Everyone else was buying flashlights. Shortly after he reached home, our older daughter called from Oklahoma with a financial question. Answering his cell phone, my husband said, “The reception’s terrible. We’re having storms and tornadoes here. Let me step outside and see if the reception is better.”

He stood outside, talking. I kept watching the nonstop weather coverage, thanked God we still had electricity and fixed supper.

Meanwhile, killer tornadoes hit all around us. The one that had formed to our south and then vanished apparently reformed just north of us, hitting a Memphis mall. Another touched down just to our west, near where I’d planned to run an errand before learning of the stormy conditions.

While both TV’s blared, I hung pictures. Would walls and pictures remain the next morning? Reporters showed one wrecked home, saying the occupants had just moved in the weekend before.

As the first wave of bad weather passed, we braced for a second. Somehow, Pewter convinced my husband to let her out. With wind howling, tall trees behind our house dancing and rain pouring, she lay on a box on our covered back porch, enjoying the spectacle.

What does it mean when tornadoes touch down all around you and the place you are, though equally vulnerable, remains an island of peace in the storm?

Very little that we experience means what it seems at first glance.

Once a God-spokesman named Elijah told his assistant, “On your feet now! Look toward the sea.”

According to 1 Kings 18, The Message, the assistant “went, looked, and reported back, ‘I don't see a thing.’

‘Keep looking,’ said Elijah.”

When the assistant did so, he saw a cloud no bigger than someone’s hand rising from the sea. Quickly, “the sky grew black with wind-driven clouds.” Heavy rain fell. On first glance, that storm meant the end to a long drought. Yet even God’s spokesman, Elijah, did not understand all the storm’s implications.

Because he thought he knew and so quit watching, Elijah misinterpreted what was happening. He misunderstood how to respond.

Whatever wild situations you’re facing, whatever devastation you’re seeing, whatever unexpected oases you’re encountering, don’t assume you understand them. Don’t draw the conclusions that seem obvious at first glance.

Keep looking. Keep listening. In tornado lingo, watch.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.