My Sunday Feeling

It has been a rough week here in the South. Hurricane Gustav, despite the fact that it missed New Orleans and didn't kill as many people, may wind up more costly than Katrina. Gustav's footprint extended from just west of New Orleans all the way to the foothills of the Arkansas Ozarks.

My friends in Baton Rouge tell me that it looks like a war zone. Power won't be fully restored until sometime next week. Trees are down everywhere. Marge's parents live in one of the older neighborhoods there. One of their neighbor's house got t-boned by a tree. They had to pull them out of the bathroom window. You don't need that kind of shit in your eigthies. Last night's text message was that Gustav was 10 times worse than Katrina.


Jim would agree. He says it is a miracle that none of the trees on his property landed on his house. He has a generator so he has been able to keep the lights on after a fashion. But he couldn't find gas to run it anywhere close to his house in Ascension Parish. So he drove to Hammond yesterday. That's damn near to Mississippi. To buy gas. Jim says that when he retires he is leaving Louisiana. He has had it.

And not to make to fine of a point about how bad things are in BR, but LSU postponed last night's football game. LSU wouldn't postpone a football game for the Second Coming.

By the time Gustav showed up in central Arkansas he was tired of travelling. So he hung around for 3 days and completely soaked Little Rock and Hot Springs. Power was out for about 20000 people in the LR area. It still isn't fully restored. My yard is littered with tree limbs and other debris. A live oak fell on top of one neighbor's house. Miraculously, she still has power. And more importantly, Internet access.

I have never seen so much rain. I never want to see it again.

At times like these, some people wonder just where the hell our supposedly loving and omnipotent God is when human suffering is abundant. Then again, some people don't.

While all this was going on, a woman of my acquaintance was making preparations to move to another state to be with a man. I know this woman on a casual basis. Pretty much all I know about her, apart from the fact that she seems to be a genuinely nice person, is what I glean from the postings on her Facebook page. She is evidently an evangelical type. She seems to have taken up with a man who is of the same persuasion if his posts are any indication.

It's amazing what people put out there for the world to see. In his posts, her boyfriend, fiancee, whatever, makes repeated references to how God is "moving" in their lives, how she will be "delivered" and how much he LOVES HER!!!!!!!!

Don't get me wrong. I hope this all works out for her. She is a nice person. And I hope that the new man in her life is good to her and, mostly, that he is not more full of shit than a Christmas turkey. I don't think at this stage in my life I would move to the next county to be with somebody, much less another state. Especially if she TALKED LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!

Besides, I don't anymore believe that God intervenes in human history to hook people up than I believe that He fixes sporting events. God evidently can't stop genocide in Darfur. He can't persuade women not to blow themselves up in the Middle East. He can't cure cancer or AIDS. And he couldn't keep Gustav offshore.

If God doesn't have anything better to do than be the teleological version of match.com than He is the God of that which does not much matter. And I say to hell with Him.

I hope my friend got lucky. Like I said, she is a nice person and I wish her nothing but happiness. But I don't confuse good fortune or plain dumb luck with the law of the universe.

I do know that we need a lot more luck around here.

Because God seems to be busy doing something else.