Compassion Awakened by Tornadoes

Mitch Arnold • May 14, 2024

Midwesterners are aware of the devastating potential of tornadoes, but we don’t live our lives with one eye on the sky. In fact, we don’t worry too much at all about them, even when the weather is favorable for their appearance. When they happen, however, they remind us of our vulnerability. My recent experience also reminded me of the importance of compassion.


The forecast three Fridays ago told us that tornadoes could emerge from the strong storms forecast to begin in my area in the mid- to late-afternoon. That’s not uncommon around here for this time of year, so I made a mental note of the threat and went on with my day. I was working from my home office when the first alert appeared on my phone at about 3 pm. I could see clouds to the south and west, but nothing appeared ominous. Then, the siren sounded.


We hear sirens two or three times every year. Usually, that means that a tornado warning has been issued for the county, but it doesn’t always mean that there is a storm in our part of the county. Normally, I explain that to my wife, while she argues with me to hide in the basement. Lynda was at work 30 miles away, so I didn’t have that argument. Instead, I turned on the television and saw that the storm could possibly be headed in my direction, though there hadn’t been a visual confirmation of a tornado. Ironically, the sirens then stopped, so I went out on my patio to get a closer look at the clouds. The clouds didn’t look any worse than they had a few minutes earlier. In fact, I saw golfers on the tee box, continuing their rounds.


When the sirens sounded a second time, just a few minutes later, I decided to pay closer attention to the television. I was steps away from the safe room in my basement, and my cell phone was in my pocket, in case I needed to scurry away to safety. Instead, I saw live footage of a massive tornado on the ground about five miles to the northwest and heading away from me. Since my house and I were safe, at least for the moment, my thoughts drifted to friends and family in the path of the storm.


It's amazing how quickly the human spirit can leave self-absorption and find compassion, when a threat is removed. Minutes earlier, I was preoccupied with thoughts of what I would do if my home was severely damaged or destroyed. Now, I was thinking of others facing that same threat. That realization made me think of how many of us, myself included, live that way every day. We get so consumed with everything that’s going in our lives that we often forget to consider others. That’s not an indictment of character; it’s simply the human condition.


The challenge is to be compassionate while still attending to our needs, and it’s a challenge I face almost every time I board a flight. Moving around in the tight quarters of an airplane is difficult for me, as is getting in and out of those seats. Plus, going down the taxiway takes me longer, so I pre-board whenever possible. Typically, there are three to as many as ten of us doing the same thing – all of us hoping for an uneventful boarding and convenient seatings. As I wait with this group, I survey the competition, trying to determine who needs the front row seats more than I do. When I board, I try to leave the best seats for those who appear to need them the most. That’s obviously an inexact science, and I’ve missed before, but I try to balance compassion with my own needs.



I need to get better doing the same thing away from the airport, and my experience with the tornado reminded me of that. Apparently, a lot of people had a similar awakening, as volunteers almost overwhelmed the coordinators responding to the storm. Driven by compassion awakened by the tornadoes, strangers from all over showed up for the unpleasant work of cleaning up from a storm, and they continued for weeks afterward. While it’s affirming that compassion is so abundant within us, let’s not wait for a tornado to share it.

Attitude Makes All of the Difference

By Mitch Arnold • March 15, 2026
About six months ago, I received a letter from a clinic telling me that my five years were up, and it was time for me to call to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. Because that procedure and the preparation for it are awfully unpleasant, I didn’t respond to the letter until last week. If you’ve ever experienced a colonoscopy, perhaps you can forgive my procrastination. After five minutes on hold, I was ready to give up on the call, maybe take it as a sign to buy more time, but Lynda sat near me, looking at me with eyes that said further procrastination would be most unwelcome. At last, a very pleasant voice greeted me on the other end of the line. I joked with her that she was WAY more enthusiastic about the call than I was. She laughed and assured me that she understood my hesitation, but that she was going to make it as easy as possible. Her job was to field reluctant calls from unenthusiastic patients, and then to ask them questions about their bowel movements. For veterans of the procedure like me, she breezed over the details of the preparation that consists of clearing your system with a barrage of intestinal stimulants, and then ended the call with reassurance that it won’t be that bad, and that having the procedure is the responsible thing to do. When I hung up the phone, I thought about how the appointment maker’s attitude made the experience better for both of us. Had she matched my level of enthusiasm and negativity, we probably still would have accomplished the required task, but we would have done so in a way that didn’t reflect our humanity. Then, I thought about how that call was a reminder of how warmth and empathy bring peace to those lucky enough to be around them. The receptionist’s job was to have conversations with people who didn’t want to talk to her and to ask them awkward questions about something as off-putting as their digestive tendencies. That’s certainly a lot to overcome, but she did it like a professional. By the time I hung up the phone, I could feel stress and tension leaving my body. We have many opportunities to do the same thing – not to ask people uncomfortable questions about bodily functions, but to lighten our tone and use empathy to make others more comfortable and bring peace to the world around us. When we encounter people obviously having a rough day, we should be sensitive to their fragility and treat them as we would want to be treated. Even when the bad day isn’t obvious, a little extra warmth and empathy is worth the effort and usually improves our days too. I know this, because I’m often blessed to be on the receiving end of these transactions. Because of my obvious disability, most people soften when meeting me. Even those who I see frequently, like people at the gym, go out of their way to be kind and helpful to me. Of course, I reciprocate, and after a while, it’s just the way that we interact with each other.  That’s a good way to live, and the colonoscopy scheduler reminded me of that. Though I had never met her, I could tell that she cared enough about me as a patient to extend the extra effort of humanity. Think about a world where we all do that every time we interact with each other.

People Think We Shouldn’t Be Friends

By Mitch Arnold • February 15, 2026
Most of my closest friendships go back decades, and they are with people who are a lot like me. Because we grew up in similar environments and share similar backgrounds, my friends and I also share fairly consistent perspectives on the world and current issues. If we differ, it’s usually only slightly. Vernon was a notable exception. Vernon came from a much different background than I, and that made his perspective unique and valuable to me. Despite our differences, we learned over the decades that we had more in common than we could have imagined. I met Vernon in the late 1990s, when I was working in public relations at a historically black university (HBCU), North Carolina A&T State University. He was 15 years older than me, and a consummate professional, not to mention, a snappy dresser. He was always in a suit, and took his work in research administration very seriously. Initially, he intimidated me and I amused him. Not many people on campus looked like me. Fewer came from a background like mine. As a white guy who grew up in the rural Midwest and whose previous job was teaching at a Catholic school in Nebraska, I was very much a minority. Additionally, I was a Republican, and there weren’t many of those around either. I thought of Vernon during the noise surrounding this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. If we still worked down the hallway from each other, one of us surely would have stopped by the other’s office to share perspectives and try to make sense of the controversy. That conversation would have ended, like they all did, with some good-natured humor and a laugh. Decades have passed since Vernon and I worked together. In that time, I moved back to Nebraska and Vernon eventually retired. Still, we kept in touch with phone calls at least once per year. “It’s your white Republican friend from Nebraska” is how those calls usually started. He would follow by asking me again where Nebraska is, and what I thought of the current political landscape. Though clearly incongruent politically, never did we argue or take up sides against each offer. Mostly what we learned from each other is that we weren’t all that different and that often what we assumed wasn’t always the case. Vernon was very much a capitalist and more socially conservative than most Republicans, including me. Jokingly, I once accused him of being a Republican, because a lot of what he said didn’t fit my narrative of a Democrat. Likewise, he was surprised when I told him that I wasn’t a fervent supporter of President Trump. “You’re a unique man,” he said. I told him that I really wasn’t. Like most people on both sides, I valued many of the things he did, like strong family values and a strong economy. We just differed on the role that government should play on those issues. In one particularly poignant exchange, Vernon said, “People would look at us and think that we shouldn’t be friends.” Initially, his comment made me sad; however, I stepped back and thought about it further. In a world that seems intent on separating and categorizing people, it’s important that we remain friends and prioritize our similarities over our differences. I would have enjoyed a conversation with Vernon about the Super Bowl Halftime Show controversy, and imagine that he would have told me that he didn’t watch either show, but I didn’t get that opportunity. Vernon passed away in his sleep last spring. Even though he’s gone, his voice will never leave me. When I see efforts to divide our great nation into sides, I’ll always think of Vernon and strive to have friendships like the one I had with him, even when people think that we shouldn’t be friends.