God and the Weather

Whenever I hear about the devastation caused by hurricanes, tornadoes, and other weather patterns, I think back to the one time I saw a tropical storm hit the shores of Lake Ontario. My parents have fifteen feet rock cliffs fifteen feet back from a rock beach. And when we arrived that night, the waves crossed the beach, smashed into the cliff, breaching it and lapping up onto the grass. It was frightening, but I knew also it was only a shadow of what the storm had originally been like when it smashed into the Gulf days earlier. I also remember the Ice Storm, when I heard trees cracking and falling every minute, some of them smacking into power lines and sparking as cars drove by underneath.

One thing I seldom ask though is, "Why did God let this happen?" Its a funny sort of hypocrisy I suppose - since I do often ask that about more personal events, or even stupid little things far too trivial to think about in that way.

But perhaps I've seen too many space pictures, in which storms rage across the surface of Earth, Jupiter, or Saturn. The most famous storm in the solar system is a hurricane system raging on Jupiter (called the red eye.) It has been blowing for hundreds of years. It will not peter out for hundreds more. This storm is so big it is twice the size of our entire planet! But even on Jupiter, a storm is a natural, local, and planetary phenomenon. To us, it seems like this huge violent thing, but in actual fact it is a small and localized event, playing a part in that planet's climatic development.

Earthly storms certainly aren't an expression of God's anger - if God wanted to show cosmic power, that would come from Quasars and black holes - phenomena of such cosmic power that not only can we not comprehend it, we are not even capable of comprehending it. A Quasar is a black hole so powerful it could eat half a galaxy. THAT is power.

The weather around us is part of a complex system that nurtures life - gives it moisture, scatters its seed, moves it into new ecological environments where life can spread. Violent weather systems are a part of that complex chain as well. It is tragic and even devastating when the weather or our planet gets violent. It is tempting even to try and ascribe theological meaning to that violence, as our ancestors surely did. But rather than rushing to make monstrous conclusions about God's nature, we should consider instead how much we have benefitted from weather. It is frightening to think that the very air that blows around us and which we breathe can be a danger to us, but consider also that we can drown in the brook we drink from, or be cut down by our own scythe as we gather the grain with which we make our bread.

Perhaps the one thing the weather can teach us is humility. In this day and age, we tend to deny God's effect. I've recalled before the wrongheaded idea of "Invictus," the author boldly claiming to be be the captain of his own soul. Our heads cannot remain unbowed, even in the face of such a comparatively small and localized display of power in the very air that feeds our lungs. We are nothing. All we can do is flee, and call on God for solace.

For it is only with gentle hands that God himself ever touches us, when we call on him. No galaxy eating quasars. Only love.