It's hurricane season again. New Orleans and southern Mississippi are still digging out from debris, shoring up levees, evaluating politicians, rediscovering homes, shaking off disease, and mourning lost lives. No one is in the mood to read the latest list of names to be assigned to this year's disasters.

But the ugly truth is that hurricanes happen. Mother Nature isn't done with us yet. We don't have hurricanes here. But Tornado Alley is not exactly a storm shelter. When hurricanes happen a thousand miles away, they affect everything around us - our economy, our security, our family and friends.

I was born in New Orleans. I was not yet toddling when my parents moved to Kansas City with their four kids (later to be six), including my younger brother Michael, a newborn at the time. Dad drove the Plymouth (so the legend goes) while Mike slept on his shoulder and I spoke my first words to the passing scenery. If I was saying how happy I was to move away from hurricanes, it was only because I knew nothing of tornadoes.

Mother Nature is a fierce parent. We have the oddest expression for her worst deeds. We call them "acts of God." If you fall victim to earthquake, tsunami, volcano or shipwreck, you legally explain it as something God did. A sunny day is never called an act of God. Neither is a starry night. No, God takes the blame for nature's worst.

The Scriptures present a different God - a God more benevolent than malevolent, but a God still linked to the acts of nature.

God's authority over nature is the message heard by the hapless Job (38:1, 8-11). Job has everything go wrong with health, property and family. His faith is still strong, but he asks the classic question, "Why me?" For 37 chapters Job asks and dialogues, thinks and rethinks. In chapter 38 he gets his answer - which is basically another question: "Who do you think you are?" God thunders back that he is stronger and wiser than Job, and he knows what he's doing: "Who shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb, when I set limits for it and fastened the bar of its door?"

In other words, "Don't try this at home, Job. I have power over the sea. I have power over you. You may think your suffering is pointless, but if you look around, you'll see plenty of evidence that I know what I'm doing."

The disciples get all the evidence they need (Mark 4:35-41). Still, it's hard to fault their concern. The Son of Man, the Savior of the World, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords is asleep on a cushion while a storm rages around them all. They ask the cheekiest question Jesus gets in his public ministry: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Jesus built his reputation on caring for the sick, the possessed and the dying. Now his own disciples disturb his slumber to ask, "Don't you care?"

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art displays a painting of this scene. The ship pitches amid violent waves, and the central figure in Delacroix's painting is a figure of despair - not Christ calming the waves, but a disciple in full panic. Jesus sleeps near the upper left corner of the painting.

Too often we panic that God doesn't care, while the answer to our problems lies resting within the reach of a gentle shake.

Jesus remains accessible each Sunday in the Eucharist, and the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ proclaims this same message. The God who has control over the wind and the sea also controls the properties of bread and wine. "Take it; this is my body," Jesus says to his startled dinner guests. Then after they drink a cup of wine, he clears his throat and says - by the way: "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many." It was not the most appetizing announcement, but it offered a priceless entree to the Christian spiritual life.

As we enter a season of natural disasters, let us remember the true acts of God. God acts upon the world around us, giving growth to seed and rest to the weary. God comes not just in spinning wind, but in still wine and fragrant bread. God does care that we are perishing. God enters sea and schist to break up doubt and calm our fear.

Father Paul Turner is the pastor of St. Munchin Parish in Cameron.

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