Spared

Last night, one of the strongest spring storms I've ever seen in a while rolled through north Texas. I had been watching the radar all night (I'm sort of a meteorologic buff) and I could see the last line of the storms we've had nearly all week was going to be a powerful storm. There had already been tornado activity and wind damage in the west and it was clear this line was picking up steam as it rolled eastward.

The storm line hit our place around 4 am. There were periods of 3" per hour rain and strong winds. Turning the TV on to get up-to-the-minute reports, I heard reports of wind gusts around 75 mph. In Plano, one caller (who is way more meteorological geek than me - the guy has his own weather station at home) reported a wind gust at his house near 90 mph. That is some powerful non-tornado related wind!

As my wife and I lay in bed, she was anticipating a tornado. I wasn't as concerned because there were fewer signs in my opinion (though we were under a "warning" at one point). I did wonder however about all those people who were likely sleeping through the storm (my two kids never even bothered to come down stairs). Nighttime tornadoes have to be some of the most frightening natural disasters out there.

Everyone in our area got through it apparently unscathed. But my thoughts turned to the east, as I rolled over and tried to get some sleep. It always seems Louisiana and Arkansas take the brunt of our meteorologic "leftovers." And, as usual, things got me to thinking...

What should our response be for those circumstances when we personally are released from any burden, pain or suffering, but then the burden falls to someone else? What about the car in the intersection that gets hit immediately behind you? (That's actually happened to me a couple of times). Or the storm that passes over your house without damage but then blasts the people in the next town and does devastating damage? Or the investment you choose not to make at the last minute and those that do invest wind up losing everything? What should our response be?

Clearly being thankful is one appropriate response. There is nothing wrong with being thankful something tragic doesn't happen to you. But is there another, perhaps even more mature response available to us?

In a culture too often dominated by entitlement, we may not think much of it. "Boy, I'm sure glad that didn't happen to me," will be our response and we never take it a step further. We might even pray a prayer of thanksgiving that it wasn't us! Which is fine, overall. But, again, I'm just thinking out loud here...

Of course, compassion informs us of what to do in the event tragedy does strike the car immediately behind us or to offer aid to the person who loses everything in a bad investment, or whatever. But what should our response be otherwise? What should our response be before tragedy strikes the "other" guy?

Last night I whispered a prayer of "thanks" that the storm passed us without incident (other than a huge "lake" outside our back fence), but I was also praying that those eastward of us were also given the same grace we were. It was the only thing that seem reasonable to do in light of the blessing we had just received. Somehow, it didn't seem right to merely take our blessing and not do something to try and be helpful to the next guy down the storm front.

I guess what we're considering is proactive compassion. What are your thoughts?