In the aftermath and ongoing churn of Hurricane Ian, the images out of Florida are breathtaking – flooded streets and towns, piles of crumpled boats and roofless houses, and cars floating here and there, to describe only a small slice of the storm’s ongoing damage.

As of this writing, fatalities haven’t been reported yet – but there’s been speculation the loss of life may very well be high. There’s news of ongoing rescues throughout the state.

If it seems hurricanes are worse than ever before, that false perception is likely attributable to twenty-four news coverage and the explosion of coastal communities. For perspective, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 killed more than 8,000 people.

Reconciling devastating natural disasters like hurricanes with an all-powerful and all-loving God is an age-old dilemma for many, especially Christians. Why would He allow such things to happen?

The late Dr. Billy Graham was often asked to explain this seeming contradiction.

“Many people want to protect God from the clear teaching of the Bible, which shows He is involved in natural disasters,” Graham would say. “It is not that God causes them, but the very fact that He could prevent them shows that we need to face squarely the fact that natural disasters happen within God’s providence.”

Political radicals, particularly anarchists, socialist and communists, have been calling for the abolishment of the family as a means toward better living for everyone for quite some time. It is a fool’s errand.

None of their claims have ever come to fruition, thankfully. But that has not stopped a new author from giving the silly idea another tired go.

The newest effort here is Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, to be published by Verso Press on October 4. This abolition must happen, according to the publisher’s promotional material, because “[n]obody is more likely to harm you than your family.” Seriously?

Can they admit that happy, non-harming families do exist? Yes, but with this dismal appraisal, “Even in so-called happy families, the unpaid, unacknowledged work that it takes to raise children and care for each other is endless and exhausting.”

The promotional material continues with more baseless, sensationalist claims, “This exhilarating essay looks at historic rightwing panic about Black families and the violent imposition of the family on indigenous communities and insists only by thinking beyond the family can we begin to imagine what might come after.” If one is looking through primarily negative lenses, then negativity is what one will see.

Wednesday marked the 32nd annual “See You At The Pole” global prayer gathering for students. At schools across America and around the world, children gathered around school flagpoles for a time of public worship and prayer.

The event takes place every year on the fourth Wednesday in September. And the purpose is simple — pray.

Students met together to lift up their friends, teachers, families, school, and nation in prayer. What makes it so special is that it is a student-organized and student-led event.

It began in 1990 as a grassroots movement of ten teenage students in Texas praying together at their school. The movement grew, and now 32 years later, it’s estimated that one million students around the world participate in See You At The Pole.

In the late 1990s, I was in high school, and I vividly remember our school’s Christian club leading the effort to invite students to pray at the event every September with posters on school walls and flyers passed out around campus.

This year, I stood alongside my kids (ages 9, 10, 12, and 13) as they gathered to participate in the event. It began with an older student welcoming everyone and inviting them to join her as she led the group in a time of worship on the guitar. The group continued to grow in size as students arrived at school. After singing several worship songs, the student leader invited our large group to break out into smaller prayer groups and to pray together.