An Earthquake can be Good for the Soul

"A Mild Earthquake Is Good For The Soul" Earthquakes can be more unsettling than tornadoes, floods, and fires, even though the damage in the latter is usually horrifying. Earthquakes slam in unannounced. You don’t see them coming. They just happen. Suddenly! There is no place to hide, no way to elude them, nowhere to go. Everything loudly shakes and rolls. Nothing stands firm and solid. Terrified, you wonder, breathlessly, is there more coming? Will it be a big one? Is this "THE BIG ONE?" Earthquakes shake us to the core because they short-circuit our inner security system. Our naturally developed notion of being in charge of our personal safety gets knocked off its foundation. Helplessness defines the moment. We are out of control. The jolting and shaking of an earthquake, like burglary or rape, violently strips away our protective armor, that illusion that we are safe, and in control. Earthquakes dis-illusion us. They rob us of our fantasy of invulnerability. Natural disasters are terrible. The damage, death, and destruction they often bring is too sad and terrible for anything but lament and anguish. On the other hand, an eye-opening jolt of 5.5 on the Richter Scale can awaken those of us whose denial-systems are working too well. Cruising, idling, or drifting along, completely immune and detached, thinking that bad things happen only to other people, is like an illness itself. Earthquakes, for most of us, work as an effective temporary cure for an unrealistic sense of security. Sometimes we are so smug and comfortable even our reach toward God is perfunctory and habitual, more than earnest or somewhat desperate. An earthquake can change that. When there is no place to hide, nothing to be done, and everything could shake apart or crash down on top of us in a few seconds, we may quickly recognize our only True Security. Few things focus the mind as well as a middle-sized earthquake. A 5.5 earthquake instantaneously clarifies what really lasts, what cannot be broken or taken away, a Loving God.