(Repost — Earl Lee) God and the Joplin F-5 Tornado

My good friend Earl Lee died on February 19. He was smart, funny, kind, and generous.  The world is a much poorer place for his loss. I’ll re-post pieces by him over the coming week; this is the second in the series, and shows a much lighter side of Earl’s writing.

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A few years ago, we were driving east along Highway 44, near Joplin, Missouri, a week after the F5 tornado tore through the south side of the city, cutting a mile wide swath through houses and businesses. The tornado destroyed several schools, churches, apartment buildings, and basically gutted St. Johns Hospital.

As we drove along Highway 44, my wife noticed that almost every exit had a porn shop, or sometimes two. She said, “Why would God destroy a hospital and leave behind all these porn shops?”

I explained, “God has no problem with porn shops. But hospitals actively defy His will. God makes people sick, but hospitals make them well–thus defeating God’s plan. It only makes sense that He’d destroy hospitals. Similarly, schools teach about science, and those ideas tend to weaken the faith of the masses (I almost said “ignorant masses” but that seemed redundant). Similarly, churches preach about salvation, and God is all about punishment– after all He did create Original Sin.”

Update: I later found out that God destroyed Christie’s Toy Box, which is just north of the IHOP, which he also destroyed, on Rangeline Road in Joplin. I guess God hates pancakes so much that he was willing to destroy the sex toy shop, too. I’m still trying to imagine the facial expression of the guy, living just east of Joplin, who found a large, pink dildo stuck in the crotch of his elm tree.

(This post originally appeared on Earl’s blog, Kiss My Left Behind,)