This hurricane season has been particularly bad for Floridians, having had four hurricanes in six weeks. In our fraternity's area we were affected by three of them. If you have never had the opportunity to weather a hurricane, let me just say that the winds are awe-inspiring and sometimes frightening in their ferocity. Mobile homes are flattened, trees are broken like matchsticks, and shingles are ripped off roofs with ease. Hurricane Charley hit at night and was so fast moving a storm that the morning dawned clear and sunny but both Hurricane Frances and Hurricane Jeanne were big, ponderously moving storms that kept us huddled inside our houses for hours and hours. After the worst of the storms were over, I went outside, both to survey the damage, and to help my father repair the fence so that the dogs could go back out into the yard without also ranging into the neighbors' yard. More trees had come down, more limbs, more leaves. We had lost electric power and would not get it back for five days. Power poles were ripped up from the ground and tossed back down. We were to find out that much of the beach had been washed away and many of the beachside businesses had sustained great damage. The Bealls store took so much water damage that almost a month later it still hasn't reopened. The federal government has pledged $14 billion to help repair Florida.
Yet that morning, after Frances, amidst all the destruction, amidst all our helplessness and inability to control the weather, I saw a beautiful yellow butterfly, its delicate wings fluttering as it gathered nectar from a purple flowered bush that had sustained no damage. Immediately I was reminded of the scripture passage where Jesus tells the people not to worry about what to eat or what to wear because God takes care of the sparrows and the flowers of the field were more finely arrayed than Solomon in all his glory.
