The disaster in the wake of Hurricane Helene is more widespread than you may think. I am sitting here in East Tennessee on the western side of the Smokies. The French Broad River is less than a mile down the road and well over its banks. Less than 50 miles to my east the roads are simply gone, whole towns are destroyed, and cities are isolated, all roads in and out washed out or otherwise closed by post-storm conditions. And that is just here in TN/NC. In Florida, coastal towns lie in ruins. In Indiana some friends are reporting their power being restored only yesterday. In other words, there are affects from this storm all the way from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes. And even if you do not live in this massive zone, you are affected.

I-40 is closed in the Smokies, missing actually having been washed away in sections, and will likely be that way for weeks to come. I-40 runs from the Atlantic Ocean to Barstow, California and carries massive amounts of freight – freight that will now have to travel an additional 200-300 miles to detour around the closure. This, in turn, adds cost to the goods moved in this fashion along this route. You are going to feel this in the places far removed from the zone directly impacted by the storm. Shifts in ports will occur as ships seek ports better served with trucking. This will further reroute the freight traffic. In some areas the freight support system, truck stops, distribution centers, etc., will wither. Months from now people will lose jobs from the storm even if they never saw it. If you think the storm damage is regional, you are absolutely wrong.

The immediate suffering in the wake of this storm is immense. But the damage does not end there. As you plan your personal response consider ALL the damage, including the damage not yet realized.

And while we are thinking about secondary and tertiary effects, I found this story fascinating:

A new study suggests that the mental health crisis in the United States may be more closely related to a lack of a biblical worldview than to commonly cited causes like chemical imbalances.

The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University released the study Tuesday, attributing the rise in mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression and fear, to what researcher George Barna calls “worldview deficiencies” rather than “psychological or chemical imbalances.”

The findings are based on interviews conducted in January with 2,000 U.S. adults aged 18 or older, with a sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

The report highlighted mental health struggles among younger generations, noting that 56% of Generation Z and 49% of millennials regularly experience anxiety, fear or depression. Generation Z refers to the youngest group of American adults, while millennials are defined as those born between 1984 and 2002. In total, one in three adults from these generations has at least one diagnosable mental disorder.

Barna sees a direct correlation between mental health challenges and the lack of a biblical worldview, which the Cultural Research Center defines as “a means of experiencing, interpreting, and responding to reality in light of biblical perspectives.” The CRC evaluates an individual’s biblical worldview based on their answers to a series of belief-related questions.

The removal of faith from the public square has had effects far beyond what we might anticipate – including in your pocketbook. In an age of heavily subsidized health insurance, we are all paying for the mental health crisis.

We tend to think in the immediate and the proximal, but we need to learn to think outside the box of our personal experience. We need to respond to these, and so many other crises, in ways that consider and mitigate the secondary and tertiary effects. You may feel better have chased those awful prayers away from the City Council meeting, but the city is suffering. You may think that you can send a sawbuck to Team Rubicon and believe you have responded adequately to Helene, but the need will continue far beyond the clean-up. You are not just helping “them.” You are helping yourself.

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