AFTER
/"WHO CAME UP WITH THE NAME TORNADO?" my 8-year old grandgirl asked me. We were driving through our tornado-devastated town in a zig-zag route to avoid still-downed power lines, uprooted trees and twisted chunks of sheet metal.
I'm glad her question was not: "Could God have stopped the tornado?"
Late Wednesday, April 19, 2023, my Amazing-Missus and I were sitting on the bathroom floor, the most interior room of our house, as instructed; under a mattress, watching the weather reports on a mobile phone. Our power was already out. The tornado seemed to have placed a bullseye on the campus of Oklahoma Baptist University with its dorms and apartment buildings full of students. They were all moved to the basement auditorium of the enourmous old chapel building which lost part of it's bell tower and a portion of its roof. All were safe!
Our oldest son who teaches at the university told me the announcement had been made that classes will have to switch to remote learning because of the damage to so many of the buildings across the campus. He said, "These poor seniors spent most of their freshman year in remote learning because of Covid. Now they're returning there because of the tornado." At least all are safe!
"What causes tornadoes?" was the next question from our inquisitive GrandGirl. I could have gone several directions with an answer: like something geo-political and talked about climate change, or veered off into the religious lunatic fringe and speculated it was judgement for some or the other sin. I chose to act like I knew meterological science and threw around terms like mezzo-cyclone, lowerings, convergence of warm moist air with cold. I don't know if she was buying it, but at least we moved on to a different topic. Maybe I should have just said, "It's Oklahoma, Cutiepie. It's what we do."
Here's a story from 1964, archived by the New York Times from the UPI wire service:
SHAWNEE, Okla., Jan. 14 (UPI)—A former mental patient dived a rented plane into an Oklahoma Baptist University classroom building containing 300 students today. He died instantly, but no one else was hurt. He apparently had intended to crash into an evacuated building.
The police tried to shoot the plane down, but failed. They fired seven rifle shots at it as it buzzed the airport adjacent to the campus. It was not known whether any of the shots hit the plane.
The pilot was Robert Lawson 43 years old, of Inola, Okla., a former student here.
The plane rammed into one of the few vacant classrooms in Shawnee Hall, a three‐story red brick building. A class had taken a test there two hours earlier. A French class of about 40 students was in a room just 30 feet from the impact.
It appeared that Mr. Lawson did not mean to hurt anyone. He got mixed up and hit the wrong building. The university had evacuated the Administration Building on his command.
Witnesses said that Mr. Lawson had buzzed the campus for 35 minutes before he rammed his plane into the south side of the building.
Shawnee Hall sits at the top of the Oval in the heart of the OBU like the keystone of the original campus. If you'll forgive my anthropomorphism, the old girl recovered from a direct hit by a nutjob in an airplane to her beautiful face, survived and has stood as the standard of dignity and grace since. That is until last Wednesday night, when the tornado hit.
Here are a couple of photos: the first is one I took on one of my early morning walks around the campus. The next, I borrowed from the OBU Facebook page. Last night, we drove around the Oval for the first time since the storm. So much destruction across the campus, but seeing Shawnee Hall was a gut punch. I'm pulling for her to rise again.
Certainly, Shawnee Hall isn't a single point of devastation. The tornado didn't discriminate. I'm just using her as sort of a marker, a finish line. Things will be cleaned up, what can be rebuilt will be, students will return to class, the beauty of springtime on a college campus will emerge. For me, once Shawnee Hall has a new roof, new windows, and a new start, I'll feel like we're back and ready for what's next.
In our faith tradition we speak of "rededication". It's works kind of like this: say, you're sitting in the bathroom floor with a mattress over you and a storm bearing down. You think: maybe I should quit fooling myself--Braum's frozen yogurt is NOT health food. From now on, I'll strive to be healthier, kinder and gentler...
Here's something I've learned about rededication: it must be preceeded by restoration; whether we talking about lives, life or landmarks like the old Hall. Once restored we can rededicate to place and purpose. And, when we seek to restore we understand that we're back to the essential ingredientes of dignity and grace.
Here's another picture for you. It's of that young GrandGirl of mine, the one that is full of questions. This is her, last autumn, doing a dance on the east steps of--you guessed it--Shawnee Hall.
I can imagine that once the campus is rebuilt and the old Hall is restored that maybe there could be a rededication as students return for the Fall semester of 2023 and a new class of freshman start their journey.
Once the restoration is complete, I may, while on campus for my early morning walk, run to the top of her stairs like Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky", and do a litte dance of my own.
As I'm typing these last lines, listening to a mix from Apple Music, Cat Stevens is singing:
Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word
Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dew fall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the One Light Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day
