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May. 8th, 2011 03:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cobraclutch2:30 early Sunday morning. Can't sleep again. On my sister's laptop, with its aircard.
Weird things. Travel in Pleasant Grove has been extremely limited for the last week, so I've kept myself to the house or went straight to where I was going and back. No sightseeing. Day before yesterday I found there was a trash removal crew blocking my street, so I had to take another route. Made me understand that my house really was right on the edge of this killer tornado. And better than that, I had figured that this house had survived so well because it was a well-built house, but I saw some houses that were much sturdier (I assume) than this one that had been torn down to bricks.
The amount of destruction around here is breathtaking. Weekends bring a crazy influx of volunteers. The neighborhood, or what's left of it, gets busy with people removing debris, cutting trees, digging through flattened homes. But the weekdays are much calmer. Much, much calmer. Quiet. There are utility trucks rolling through, but the civilian traffic is totally eliminated. No one lives here anymore but us. I'm not exaggerating on that. We're the only people living on our street. All the other houses are either demolished or unlivable -- or the residents just aren't living in them. any way you slice it, we're alone out here. It's weird.
That kinda brings up another point -- lotsa gunshots at night. I'm not going to speculate on that very much, but it's known that there are looters out and about, and the National Guard and police are very strict on them. All the same, not a very reassuring sound, especially with the knowledge that you're practically alone out here. What IS reassuring is that there used to be cops driving by at least every five minutes throughout the night. I say used to be. That was the case last week. not so much now.
with all of this in mind, I STILL don't fear for my safety or for the safety of my family. The looters, or whoever might be shootin' off their crazy ass guns in the middle of a disaster area at 3am, is digging through destroyed houses for copper and recyclable material. This house is clearly inhabited. Doubt they would mess with this one.
Eh. Didn't even mean to write about looters. Just started typing.
What I meant to write about...
Started working outside today. Cleaning up some of the mess from the storm. It's been an ongoing process. While the damage to the house was minimal, there were several trees that were blown down and lots of neighbor's trees fell into our yard, so it all had to be taken care of. I've been picking away at it as I can. I'm only one guy, and I only had a handsaw to cut the stuff with, so it was slow work. But today five guys armed with two chainsaws and a front end loader showed up and made my job much, much easier. Now, all I have to do is the cleanup. These guys were volunteers. They were running around through pleasant grove, doing the work that needed to be done, for no other reason than there were people in need. And, of course, because their faith told them to do it.
I'm not going to complain about these guys of faith doing a giant favor for me when I was obviously in a time of great need. My dad -- back in the '98 tornado -- wouldn't accept help from people from the church. He was in a different situation, though. He had a lot of people ready and willing to help him. I was alone. So, I accepted their help, and gladly. And I noticed that there were TONS of these guys running around, all over the place, helping everyone they could, everywhere they could. The insurance adjuster was checking the house when this started and remarked how, in all his years of running after disaster after disaster, he'd never seen a community -- or a state -- come together like we have.
I am very proud of that.
But at the same time, I am an atheist. I see these people of faith doing this and I have to question if they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or if it's to help them get into heaven. I'm certainly not going to ask them after they've made my life so much easier, but I would really like to know. I'd like to think they're doing it to help their fellow man, and it's as simple as that, but I don't think it is. Skepticism in everything can be pain.
But it's made me think about something else. What would happen if a group of atheists were to get together under the banner of atheism and help people in disasters like this? Not preaching the gospel of antigospel -- but preaching the gospel of helping JUST TO HELP, without the undertones that it's a bribe through the gates.
Then I realized that that wouldn't work, because atheists are very selfish people. At least, I am. I mean, fuck. I'm going to get my work done in my yard and quit. Balls on the rest of the city. i'm tired, man. That's my personal outlook on it. If it wasn't even in my city, I probably wouldn't even care.
However, as a fucked-up double standard, I did care a lot when Japan lost its shit.
But you see what I'm saying. I question their motives. Any way, it's good for me, but the motive behind it might make it feel a little bit dirty to me, personally.
Probably a bad time to even mention all of that, but I've found that I have a really hard time sleeping recently when I have something like that on my mind. Gotta think it through, get it off my chest. Thanks for being there, ol' journal. Knew I kept you around for a reason.
Weird things. Travel in Pleasant Grove has been extremely limited for the last week, so I've kept myself to the house or went straight to where I was going and back. No sightseeing. Day before yesterday I found there was a trash removal crew blocking my street, so I had to take another route. Made me understand that my house really was right on the edge of this killer tornado. And better than that, I had figured that this house had survived so well because it was a well-built house, but I saw some houses that were much sturdier (I assume) than this one that had been torn down to bricks.
The amount of destruction around here is breathtaking. Weekends bring a crazy influx of volunteers. The neighborhood, or what's left of it, gets busy with people removing debris, cutting trees, digging through flattened homes. But the weekdays are much calmer. Much, much calmer. Quiet. There are utility trucks rolling through, but the civilian traffic is totally eliminated. No one lives here anymore but us. I'm not exaggerating on that. We're the only people living on our street. All the other houses are either demolished or unlivable -- or the residents just aren't living in them. any way you slice it, we're alone out here. It's weird.
That kinda brings up another point -- lotsa gunshots at night. I'm not going to speculate on that very much, but it's known that there are looters out and about, and the National Guard and police are very strict on them. All the same, not a very reassuring sound, especially with the knowledge that you're practically alone out here. What IS reassuring is that there used to be cops driving by at least every five minutes throughout the night. I say used to be. That was the case last week. not so much now.
with all of this in mind, I STILL don't fear for my safety or for the safety of my family. The looters, or whoever might be shootin' off their crazy ass guns in the middle of a disaster area at 3am, is digging through destroyed houses for copper and recyclable material. This house is clearly inhabited. Doubt they would mess with this one.
Eh. Didn't even mean to write about looters. Just started typing.
What I meant to write about...
Started working outside today. Cleaning up some of the mess from the storm. It's been an ongoing process. While the damage to the house was minimal, there were several trees that were blown down and lots of neighbor's trees fell into our yard, so it all had to be taken care of. I've been picking away at it as I can. I'm only one guy, and I only had a handsaw to cut the stuff with, so it was slow work. But today five guys armed with two chainsaws and a front end loader showed up and made my job much, much easier. Now, all I have to do is the cleanup. These guys were volunteers. They were running around through pleasant grove, doing the work that needed to be done, for no other reason than there were people in need. And, of course, because their faith told them to do it.
I'm not going to complain about these guys of faith doing a giant favor for me when I was obviously in a time of great need. My dad -- back in the '98 tornado -- wouldn't accept help from people from the church. He was in a different situation, though. He had a lot of people ready and willing to help him. I was alone. So, I accepted their help, and gladly. And I noticed that there were TONS of these guys running around, all over the place, helping everyone they could, everywhere they could. The insurance adjuster was checking the house when this started and remarked how, in all his years of running after disaster after disaster, he'd never seen a community -- or a state -- come together like we have.
I am very proud of that.
But at the same time, I am an atheist. I see these people of faith doing this and I have to question if they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or if it's to help them get into heaven. I'm certainly not going to ask them after they've made my life so much easier, but I would really like to know. I'd like to think they're doing it to help their fellow man, and it's as simple as that, but I don't think it is. Skepticism in everything can be pain.
But it's made me think about something else. What would happen if a group of atheists were to get together under the banner of atheism and help people in disasters like this? Not preaching the gospel of antigospel -- but preaching the gospel of helping JUST TO HELP, without the undertones that it's a bribe through the gates.
Then I realized that that wouldn't work, because atheists are very selfish people. At least, I am. I mean, fuck. I'm going to get my work done in my yard and quit. Balls on the rest of the city. i'm tired, man. That's my personal outlook on it. If it wasn't even in my city, I probably wouldn't even care.
However, as a fucked-up double standard, I did care a lot when Japan lost its shit.
But you see what I'm saying. I question their motives. Any way, it's good for me, but the motive behind it might make it feel a little bit dirty to me, personally.
Probably a bad time to even mention all of that, but I've found that I have a really hard time sleeping recently when I have something like that on my mind. Gotta think it through, get it off my chest. Thanks for being there, ol' journal. Knew I kept you around for a reason.
