STUDENTS OF...
Both ancient and recent experiences would suggest that Mankind remains subservient to the violence of Nature. He has developed no real, complete defense.
Within the space of a fortnight we have experienced costly floods, avalanches of snow, rock and mud and creeping; leaping walls of flame have sent sacrificial billows of smoke and ash into the heavens over dense forests and grassy plains. As a centerpiece of the costly the menu of such horrors we also had a major earthquake deep below the surface of the Indian Ocean, generally west of Bangladesh and north of the Maldive Islands. That blast started the biggest Tsunami known to man with powerful waves measuring well over thirty-five feet high sweeping over eleven low-lying nations and doomed seas of doomed humanity. The total number of people injured is beyond counting and the soul-sapping loss of property and personal belongings by millions of people is beyond even general estimates.
A central concern with all of this - even though we hesitate to actually put it into words - is: why? What could possibly be the underlying cause of such a strange series of disasters? What might have engendered the force of it all? It is natural that we worry about others, possibly, which must,then, are out there just waiting to happen.
We are well-school by book-learning and my individual experience to feel that for every action there has been a cause. We can't just "forget about it." Nor, can we properly defend ourselves and those we love if we don't know what,who and where the opposition - the "enemy" might be. I meet with those who tell me:"Forget about it. Those things happen,and there's nothing you can do about stopping any of them - so ignore them. They have been happening for centuries. That's just the it is and the way it has always been!"
At the opposite extreme I find a great many people waiting to point out why and this seemingly haphazard series of events is my fault as part of a mankind which does not do that which is see to be good and proper in the sight of almighty God. How they came to such active analysis of the inner workings of God's mind, is never explained, but they extract all they can drain from their pet peeve - be it purification of the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, peace in Palestine, Justice in Judea, or ballots for illegals - and find ways to show how our neglect, our selfishness, our growing greed and activated avarice eat at the foundations of the Earth itself and at our civilization such as it may appear to be at that moment.
I have a feeling it is something deeper than all that. We are not all that we think ourselves to be. We have yet a long, long way to go. This Earth, this creation of endless wonders, universal in-gatherings of solar bodies and seminal substances we have not yet even heard about - much less known. We have yet to see and feel the total complex powers of Nature.
We keep our God small enough to comprehend.
As the weaknesses continue begin to show in our system, new revelations will come about and a even better life will emerge. We are still in the learning stage of our being and some lessons we learn do not come easily at all.
A.L.M. January 27,2005 [c570wds]
