Throughout existence, humans have leaned into storms to hear a word from beyond. It doesn’t matter where that beyond is. Beyond is beyond. Though the conclusions are varied, they all come from a lived reality. Theology is found in such realities. Theology is found in the storm.
“God was with us.” “God saved us.” “God sent the angels to surround us.” “Without God, we would be dead.” Immediately after the storm, you are bound to hear comments like these over and over again. The more you hear, the curiouser the comments get. One begins to wonder if thought has entered the displayed brains at all. Of course, the reciprocal conclusion of such comments is that God forgot all about or ignored the folks who weren’t spared. Think about what the reciprocal conclusions might sound like. “God wasn’t with us.” “God didn’t save us.” “God’s angels lost.” “With God, we died.” These types of statements would certainly better reflect the existential reality of those journeying through the storm. Maybe we should go even further and declare. “We are with God.” “We saved God.” “We are the angels that have surrounded God.” “Without us, God would be dead.” Such statements might best describe the symbiotic relationship between God and us. In the storm, there is truth. Without us, God doesn’t exist. Without God, we don’t exist. God is with us and we are with God. The storm begins to dishevel theologies. We become disheveled. God becomes closer than we could ever imagine. “God and I.” “Salvation is in us.” “We are the angels.” “We are never dead.” May our theology never clear. The storm is the realist theological principal of them all. The cries of our heart echo in the chaos. God meets us in such cries and cries out too. The cry becomes salvation. There are no words. There are only the shrill cries of the storm. God has never been found in words. God is found in the terrors and longings of the heart. God is. We are. The storm is our home. The storm is our theology. The storm is. The storm. I am.
Amen.
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