December 1, Advent 1C (Luke 21:25-36)
If our faith cannot help us escape tribulations, then what should we do when we face them?
It was a hot summer night, and I was dreaming of sirens. I startled awake, still hearing their peals. But as I sat up, I realized that the sirens were only getting louder.
Beside me, my wife was stumbling to her feet. “Those are tornado sirens,” she said. “We need to get the kids.”
Tornado? I thought as we dragged our two young children out of bed, hauled them into the windowless bathroom, and squeezed beside them into blanket nests on the floor. I had spent half my life in Chicago without ever hearing a tornado siren. I hadn’t even known that the city had tornado sirens. What was going on?
