All That We Cannot Know

Some fragmented thoughts on the aftermath of hurricanes, faithful unknowing, cacio e pepe, and the changing of seasons

Thursday, September 29
Grand Rapids, Mich.

Hello, friendly reader.

One morning thirty years ago last month, my family packed up our car, locked up our house in Miami, and fled north up I-95 ahead of a hurricane named Andrew. I said “fled.” But if that brings to mind some kind of speedy escape, let me clarify: We crawled up the freeway along with thousands of others. We slowly made our way to a hotel a few hundred miles up the coast, safely out of the storm’s path.

After a largely sleepless night in a hotel, we got back into the car and drove back south. We returned to devastation. Where lush mango trees had once shaded a neat grid of asphalt roads and suburban homes, there were now mud paths winding through a largely limbless landscape. Some neighborhoods had been flattened. Ours was relatively lucky. Still, screened patios had collapsed into tangles of mesh and metal, and pretty much every roof on our street had been ripped off by the 175-mph winds; both my parents’ bedroom and our kitchen had become open-air, everything in them soaked through.

A mobile-home park a few miles from my Miami home, after being destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Photo: NOAA Picture Library

These memories rushed back into my mind as Hurricane Ian began pummeling Florida yesterday. My prayers are with the people across the state, as well as in Cuba and the Cayman Islands as they sift through the debris left in Ian’s wake. I hope you’ll join me in praying for them, not just over the next few days but also over the coming weeks and months. 

Millions of people in Florida are without electricity right now, but power is one of the easiest things to restore. It might seem as if a hurricane blows through quickly. But those who have lost some or all of their homes and their farms and their offices and their schools will come to understand that a storm like Ian continues to destroy and disrupt long after the winds have stilled. 

For us and so many others, the hardest part wasn’t the hurricane’s immediate aftermath. The rest of the world quickly moves on, and the camera crews go home. You’re left to navigate an alien terrain of insurance adjusters and prolonged uncertainty, rat-infested rugs and moldy possessions, overwhelmed contractors and upended school calendars. We were fortunate to be a middle-class family with decent insurance, which allowed us to rebuild. But it took more than a year for our house to be in livable condition again.

We will soon begin to see economic estimates of Hurricane Ian’s damage. These cold numbers won’t begin to measure the real toll. I suspect we’ll read almost nothing about the emotional and psychological landscape: While some families will hold together, others fall apart under the extended strain. There will be grief, anger, even rage—and all the incalculable human costs that can spin out from those. Even the lucky ones who have good insurance policies will find no clause that covers all that.

Then there’s the spiritual: Young Jeff could be pretty dogmatic. But one of the things Hurricane Andrew shattered was any certainty about the actions of an allegedly sovereign God. Even as preachers and teachers spoke with seemingly unshakable confidence about how God had seen us through, I couldn’t help but think about those for whom that story did not seem to be true. Why would that God allow such great suffering then or now, as we see what’s happened in Florida; in Puerto Rico, post-Fiona; in Pakistan, after a devastating monsoon season? It’s just too much. And those of us who enjoy the luxury of some distance—our attention can’t hold even these sorrows for very long, let alone all the other places and peoples that have experienced and are still experiencing events that, for better or worse, are beyond human control and are therefore labeled “acts of God.” It’s just too much.

Maybe we just can’t know.

In 1954, the famed journalist Edward R. Murrow boarded a military plane and flew into Hurricane Edna with an Air Force team charged with gathering data about the storm. He described with great vividness the experience of traveling through whipping winds over churning ocean—until they reached the eerily quiet eye of the storm. “The eye of a hurricane is an excellent place to reflect upon the puniness of man and his work,” Murrow said in his report. “If an adequate definition of humility is ever written, it’s likely to be done in the eye of a hurricane.”

Maybe we just can’t know.

Decades after Hurricane Andrew, I can tell you that I share Murrow’s belief in the puniness of man, but I still haven’t reconstructed any certainty about what exactly God is doing. But I will say that I stubbornly refuse to believe that a good God would induce harm or inflict pain. And I cling equally stubbornly to a conviction that God is love. (Not certainty, to be clear, but conviction.) And if God is love, then God must be especially near to those who, for whatever reason, after whatever storm, find themselves sitting amid a pile of debris.

Maybe we just can’t know. But I, for one, have to try to believe.

What I’m Growing: I’m a little surprised that a few chili peppers are making a late charge, and some of the tomatoes are still hanging on too. We have a few days ahead when the sun will be shining and the mercury will near 70, so I hope they will ripen soon. Our average first frost date here comes at the beginning of October. 

Grow, little tomato, grow

What I’m Cooking: Typically, when I travel, I return home with food. I learned this from my parents. When my family was living in Miami, not exactly a capital of Chinese cuisine, every trip to Northern California presented an opportunity to refill our freezer and pantry. We’d stock up on dried scallops and shiitake mushrooms and all the sauces and elixirs we needed for the months to come, wrapping each glass bottle carefully in newspaper and clothing. We’d buy and freeze whole roast ducks and soy-sauce chickens, multiple pounds of barbecued pork and multiple packages of fresh rice noodles. Then we’d carefully pack our bags until they were right up to the weight limit, and we’d lug the lot back to Florida. At baggage claim, you could always recognize our suitcases: They emerged onto the carousel dripping with condensation. 

I’ve since traveled with coffee and chocolate—easy cargo—but also frozen fish, fresh vegetables, and whole pizzas. Once, at the end of a February visit to Northern California, I stopped at the farmers’ market on my way to the airport and then flew back to New York carrying a full flat of strawberries. If we’re in Texas, we’ll usually bring home at least a couple of pounds of frozen brisket and sausage as well as some tamales. (FYI: As long as an ice pack is completely frozen, it doesn’t count as a liquid, and you can get it through a TSA checkpoint.) Returning from Mexico City earlier this week, we had two small jars of extraordinary salsa and a bottle of Mexican olive oil. 

Our imported bounty is an edible postcard to ourselves, perhaps even a series of them. As we enjoy this food in the weeks and months to come, we’re returned to good memories. It’s as if we’ve extended our trips. And if Tristan isn’t traveling with me, I can at least share with him some of the best of what I’ve tasted.

I suspect Tristan found this practice odd when we first met. But times change. In June, Tristan went to Tuscany with friends while I was preaching in British Columbia and North Carolina. When I got home, he said he had things to show me: a vacuum-packed wheel of Pecorino Romano cheese, pepperoni and salami, and several bottles of Chianti. It was one of my proudest moments as a husband.

Pecorino is the main ingredient in cacio e pepe, the beautifully simple pasta dish that traditionally includes just the cheese, black pepper, and pasta. But simple as cacio e pepe might seem, it’s not so easy to get the aged sheep’s-milk cheese to melt without clumping. After trying some different recipes, I’ve settled on one devised by Kenji Lopez-Alt, one of my favorite recipe developers and food writers. It might disappoint purists who insist that cacio e pepe cannot contain any other ingredients—Lopez-Alt’s recipe uses some olive oil and some butter to help emulsify the cheese as it melts. But I’ll always pick good eating over culinary purity. And if grace should abound in our hearts, why not on our palates and in our stomachs? 

I made Lopez-Alt’s cacio e pepe on Tuesday, with Tristan’s imported cheese and one additional slight tweak: Instead of spaghetti, we used bucatini. Because of the hole that runs through the middle of the pasta, bucatini is thicker and has more of a bite. We loved the dish.

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As I mentioned last week, Tristan and I went away for a few days for our tenth anniversary. Destination: Mexico City. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. We ate so well—Tristan said we didn’t have a single bad meal. And my frugal Chinese heart was delighted by the fact that one of our lunches, at a hole-in-the-wall taqueria that specializes in the citrus-marinated, slow-roasted pork called cochinita pibil, cost the equivalent of $3.87.

$3.87!!!!

When we left Grand Rapids, the afterglow of summer was still hanging in the air. When we returned, fall had definitely pushed its way in—crisper, darker mornings, more color in the trees. Also, a dauntingly packed calendar—and because I left my laptop at home, an inbox that’s even more of a disaster zone than it was before. 

Amid all the clamor, I find myself struggling for steadiness. With the news of the aching world as well as the start of the school year, I wonder if some of you are in a similar place. So I thought I’d leave you this week with a brief blessing.

A Blessing for the Changing of Seasons
May you let the spent leaves in your life fall 
and strengthen your roots for what comes next.
May you kindle fires that nourish and warm
and extinguish ones that hurt and harm.
May you remain openhearted and openhanded amid all that can’t be controlled 
and hold true and tight to what ought not to change.
May you allow ample room for grief
and receive unexpected invitations to joy.
May you have the courage to be uncertain
and make friends with mystery.
May you regard the past with grace
and face the future with hope.
May you cultivate your faithful unknowing
and always feel the steadying presence of our ever-loving God.
Amen.

Yours,
Jeff

p.s. I always like to hear from you and know what’s on your mind. It’s always a privilege to pray for you too. Please leave a comment here or email me at makebelievefarmer@gmail.com.