According to Spaceplace, a website for kids maintained by NASA, tropical cyclones are the most violent storms on Earth. Tropical cyclones that form over the Atlantic Ocean or eastern Pacific Ocean are called “hurricanes.”
The site describes hurricanes as giant engines that use warm, moist air as fuel. The warm, moist air over the ocean rises upward from near the surface, causing an area of lower air pressure below. This process continues to develop a full-fledged hurricane:
Air from surrounding areas with higher air pressure pushes into the low-pressure area. Then that “new” air becomes warm and moist and rises, too. As the warm air continues to rise, the surrounding air swirls in to take its place. As the warmed, moist air rises and cools off, the water in the air forms clouds. The whole system of clouds and wind spins and grows, fed by the ocean’s heat and water evaporating from the surface.
Mass destruction may appear chaotic while happening, but there is a lot of organizing that usually precedes catastrophes. Hurricanes organize power as they move over warm water, beginning as a “tropical disturbance,” and slowly gaining velocity and destructive energy.
Nevertheless, hurricanes are a part of the Earth’s ecosystem and, as such, deliver benefits along with the destruction caused. For example, hurricanes redistribute nutrients that support marine food chains. For humans, however, the cost far outweighs the benefit.
The organizers of the MAGA political party spent months planning and promoting Project 2025 as the movement shifted from disruption to an unfortunate reality. Millions see a benefit in their success. But most of us know that the cost greatly outweighs any gains.
For example, ignoring climate change while promoting an increase in fossil fuels and ending investments in alternative energy greatly benefits a handful of mostly wealthy individuals. But the cost to the vast majority of us is deadly.
In the first four chapters of our companion book, The Emperor of Gladness, we’re introduced to the town of East Gladness, sitting along the Connecticut River. Hai, who is 19, stands on the King Philip’s Bridge, “the last way out of town,” in the rain, preparing to jump. As Hai climbs over the railing, he sees a bedsheet floating in the water, mistaking it for a dead body.
Fortunately, Grazina, an immigrant from Lithuania, sees Hai on the bridge and convinces him to climb down and offers him shelter. She invites him to stay the night and convinces him to become her caregiver in exchange for room and board. Grazina has dementia and needs help managing her medications.
Dementia also takes time to organize before it reaches a destructive stage where it interferes with daily life. Hai quickly learns ways to help Grazina get through her dementia episodes, which are often quite vivid. Meanwhile, he grieves over the loss of Noah, and his own life is in flux. Grazina teaches Hai a ritual of stomping on dinner rolls as a symbolic act of victory over sorrow.
The town of East Gladness is portrayed as a place marked by loss, poverty, and hopelessness. However, Grazina’s stubborn insistence offers an example of how survival often comes in rough, imperfect forms.
This poor widow put in more than all the others. For the others offered their gifts from what they had to spare of their riches.
Luke 21:1-4
Life is forever a divine love story. God created humankind out of love and never abandons us when calamity strikes, whether or not we played a role in causing it. However, this doesn’t mean that God doesn’t have favorites. Scripture consistently shows that God considers the poor, widows, orphans, and immigrants as people needing a little extra help—and expects those with the ability to provide it to do so.
We begin our journey recognizing and identifying with the tension between remembering and letting go, always keeping in mind the importance of grace offered out of love, more so than familiarity. Grazina and Hai began their story together as strangers. Grazina didn’t save Hai because she knew him and believed he was worth saving. She saved him because it was the right thing to do.
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Pastor Tommy
Our companion book for this series: Ocean Vuong. The Emperor of Gladness. NY: Penguin Press, 2025..