Hurricane Sandy and Nature

 Taking a little break from the spiritual blog format to contemplate on nature. The past week has been hectic evacuating my elderly father-in-law to my home in central Pennsylvania. He was living in Cape May county, NJ. Also had my mother-in-law in a hospice care home only a few miles from the storms center where it reached landfall. It seems those in the center were not hit as hard as the outer bands where the higher winds and surges actually occurred. Just today returned back home and little damage was done to their home but trees were on houses and power lines lost around them. I had to upright a shed and put the contents back in place - just basic cleanup.
 Moved my mother-in-law to a long term care facility as her health had improved and she is out of hospice care, thank God. In the end all the prayer though beneficial was nice but she needed nutrition and nurses helped with that. I even stayed and hand fed her a few days which was a different experience , she was always the one preparing the Thanksgiving meal or making breakfast for everyone. It was time for payback and she certainly deserved it. Nutrition is so important though we cannot live by bread alone, we still need food. Jesus always made sure that people were fed along with spiritual teaching.
 Nature often can remind us that things are temporal. There were a lot of beautiful homes along the oceanfront destroyed in the hurricane. Many thought they would just retire and enjoy the beach with nice homes and cars. It only takes a storm to bring us to the reality of this temporal life. Nature and all the common disturbances of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes often serve as a time for reflection. I myself once had a tornado completely remove a roof and destroy all our belongings years ago. We were homeless for awhile but rebuilt and survived. Hurricane Sandy was only a category one but hitting major populations and the vast size of the storm made it much worst than anyone realized. I have to give the weather persons credit for giving precise landing points and excellent information on which to base decisions.
 One thing we see a lot of in human nature , even though people are warned and given plenty of notice they ignore the warnings. They make foolish decisions based on pride or possession instead of letting go and just seeking higher ground. Many lost their lives trying to hold on to property which is nothing compared to life. My birthday was actually the day after the storm passed and it was over shadowed by the storm but will be one to remember.
-peace and love.
Earl.