Thunderstorms and the Fear of God

At this also my heart trembles,
    and leaps out of its place.
² Listen, listen to the thunder of his voice
    and the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
³ Under the whole heaven he lets it loose,
    and his lightning to the corners of the earth.
⁴ After it his voice roars;
    he thunders with his majestic voice
    and he does not restrain the lightnings  when his voice is heard.
⁵ God thunders wondrously with his voice;
    he does great things that we cannot comprehend.

Job 37

Do you enjoy a good thunderstorm? You may feel that no T-storm is a good T-storm and there are lots of people and pets who would agree with you. They can be dangerous and I was at the Ontario  Bark Lake Leadership Camp as a teen when a lightning strike hit close to a group doing a bog walk and one of the young people was paralyzed for several hours. Humans and livestock perish every year because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. 
I've heard several lightning items on the news in recent days and listeners to the CBC were invited to communicate their close-call stories this morning. We've had a few of our own through the years. Ruth and I paddled the Sand River years ago and were forced to camp on a sandbar in a canyon in the midst of torrential rain. We watched the river rising and the sound of thunder was amplified in the narrow defile. It was exhilarating and terrifying. We camped in the wilds of Killarney Park with our three children when a thunderstorm swept through our area. We were on Grace Lake, a hanging lake with a 1400 metre portage in, so we had no choice but to wait it out.





The bible has lots of passages about thunder and lightning which are seen as a manifestation of God's power and might. A noisy thunderstorm can certainly put the fear of God in a person, particularly when there is little between you and a gajillion volts of raw energy.

I wonder if it's good to have our cages rattled from time to time? We humans tend to delude ourselves into thinking we are in charge and can control the elements. It just ain't so, and some existential terror is a good reminder of our smallness when we're getting too big for our britches. When Job is pondering his agony God is less than sympathetic and the poor guy realizes how finite he is, as we see above. The prophet Ezekiel has his own experience of a fierce storm before God speaks to him "the sound of sheer silence."

One more lightning story. One year we visited the remarkable Mesa Verde in Colorado, the site of the cliff dwellings for the Ancestral Pueblo people who mysteriously left around 1300 AD. It was an amazing opportunity to clamber about in those cave-like dwellings, but we also experienced a natural light show that evening from our lodge balcony. We were mesmerized by hundreds of "dry lightning" strikes to the west of us in Utah and Arizona, all devoid of sound or rain.

So, may you all experience some holy terror this summer, and God be with you!

Are you a thunderstorm fan?  Do they put the fear of the Creator in you?

Holy Water! Paddling and the Life of the Spirit

Yesterday was the first of National Paddling Week and we attended a birthday gathering for a sweet little two-year-old, the daughter of a nephew and his wife. Before we arrived for this pleasant event north of Napanee we put our kayaks in on the Salmon River and spent an idyllic 90 minutes paddling along the tree-lined waterway. We were alone for virtually the entire time, at least in terms of humans. It was also blissfully quiet when it came to the "unwanted sound of everything we want," to use Garret Keizer's phrase.

Ruth-eye view of the Salmon River June 2018

We were surrounded by the "cloud of witnesses" of other creatures instead. The maple forest was filled with birdsong and kingfishers chattered along the river. Our greatest delight, though, was the astonishing number of dragonflies and damselflies which weren't present even two weeks ago. When we stopped and were still for a moment they would land on our boats and us before darting away again.

Ruth, St. Martin's New Brunswick Bay of Fundy

We enjoy paddling on the ocean and have done so in the Bay of Fundy and the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the northeast coast of Newfoundland. This sort of paddling always requires a degree of vigilance which respects wind and tide and frigid water.

Yesterday was a tranquil and contemplative meander on a balmy and warm afternoon. We could be attuned to our Maker and be gently hopeful about the everyday complexity of the created order. We have paddled amidst icebergs and had a pod of porpoises swim beneath us, both of which were thrilling experiences. Yet the Tiger Swallowtail butterflies and the Painted turtles we saw on the Salmon were wonders to behold as well.

Much has been written about the spiritual discipline of walking. It's important to remember that long before European contact Canada's history was written along its waterways.

We have been paddling together for 44 years now, in canoes and kayaks, and God has always spoken to us on the holy water.

Pope Francis and the Oil Execs

Today Pope Francis met with oil executives at the Vatican. Who woulda thunk it? What is more groundbreaking, that the pope would invite them to discuss energy, or that they would attend? We've been aware of Francis' commitment to environmental issues, particularly climate change. His encyclical Laudato Si was a timely and mature consideration of the many facets of caring for Creation. I led a study of Laudato Si shortly after it was published and it is impressive.  

The meeting today included forty senior executives from companies such as Exxon Mobil and Shell and BP. Not only are they amongst the largest fossil fuel companies in the world, they have been guilty of some of most egregious incidents of environmental damage.  New York state is suing some of these companies for knowingly contributing to climate change.

In his address to the group Pope Francis offered:

"We know that the challenges facing us are interconnected. If we are to eliminate poverty and hunger ... the more than one billion people without electricity today need to gain access to it...
But that energy should also be clean, by a reduction in the systematic use of fossil fuels. Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty."

Will Big Oil have an epiphany and repent of their environmental sins? Well, it may be that law will be the motivator for change rather than grace, but grudging kudos for the oil execs for attending... did I just write that?... And thank God for Pope Francis and his commitment to Earth Care.

Yes, Oceans Matter

“It is a curious situation that the sea,

from which life first arose

should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life.

But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist;

the threat is rather to life itself.”   

 

    Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us 1951

This is World Oceans Day, so I have to write about it as a Groundling and a...Waterling?

There has been only a couple of years in the past 25 when I haven't visited the ocean somewhere, and I feel blessed. We have enjoyed snorkeling in coral reefs in Cuba, and meandering along the Pacific shore in both Costa Rica and British Columbia. The North Atlantic in Iceland was astonishing, but the majority of our trips have been to the Canadian Atlantic in Quebec, New Brunswick, PEI, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Last summer we rented a house for a month on Change Islands, NL, and paddling our kayaks out to icebergs was magical. We have fond memories of whale-watching with our kids and getting close enough to humpbacks to feel their moist, fishy breath.

Breath. There is something about the inhalation and exhalation of the planet, twice a day, which is a deeply spiritual experience for me. The tides, mysteriously governed by the moon, have always fascinated humans and Canada experiences some of the highest tides on Earth in the Bay of Fundy and the Ungava Bay region of Quebec. We misjudged the outgoing tide at the Hopewell Rocks one year and had to haul our kayaks across the gooey red mud for quite a distance!

                                          Ruth Iceland

There is great concern about the amount of plastic being discarded in our oceans, so much so that it may outweigh fish by the year 2050. Sonic testing for oil development is messing up the whales of the deeps and the oceans have absorbed so much carbon scientists are convinced we are at the crisis point.

We have to change this, and perhaps the G7 Conference currently underway in Quebec will result in some meaningful action. There is talk of a Plastics Charter being developed by these nations, although I imagine is could only be six, given the regressive policies of the Trump administration.

Yes, we will get to the ocean again this year, God willing. Here are a couple of verses from a Norman Habel hymn based on Psalm 104

3. View anew the dark blue ocean,
Whales cavorting, spraying foam;
God at play with deep sea monsters,
Feeling very much at home.
Sing a song of laughing waters,
Pulsing through the veins of Earth. 
4. Feel the breath of God move softly,
Gentle mists that brush the skin;
Earth is breathing God’s own spirit,
Life renewed from deep within.
Sing a song of living waters,
Pulsing through the veins of Earth.
 

Words: © Norman Habel 2001

Tune: Praise My Soul The King of Heaven

Wonder and Appreciation

Virginia Rail - Leslie Abram - Frink Centre

A couple of weeks ago I ventured out early to the boardwalk at the Frink Centre, north of Belleville. This is a popular spot for school groups, which tend to be...enthusiastic! I was there early enough that they hadn't arrived yet, nor were there any other humans. A portion of the boardwalk has been dismantled and will be rebuilt but it is still accessible with a little more effort.

It was quiet and peaceful and an unusual morning in terms of encounters with wildlife. I noticed the corpse of a duck in the water and when I looked closer I realized several turtles were feeding on the largely intact remains. When I leaned down the largest turtle grabbed the body and pulled it under the boardwalk to preempt my possible theft.

When I walked farther along I heard a noisy thrashing about it the cattails and was surprised to see the head of a White-Tailed deer, then another. They were well out in the water, perhaps to feed on new shoots.

Then I was surprised by the emergence of a small bird onto to the boardwalk. I thought it might be a Sora but it was probably a Virginia Rail, as seen in the photo by Leslie Abram (check out her website for some wonderful pictures.) http://leslieabram.com/ And I did see a water snake as well.


I find these times in the solitude, amidst other creatures going about their daily lives, to be contemplative and an invitation into a Presence which is healing, the "now" of existence which seems to evade us much of the time. There are no tasks in these moments, just a powerful sense of wonder and appreciation. I don't take this for granted and I thank the Creator of All.

Comments?



Water Snake -Garry Kirsch - Frink Centre

Plastics and the Groaning Creation

 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 
 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it,
n hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 
and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit,
groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.


It's World Environment Day, an annual event, and this year the theme is Beat Plastic Pollution.

I'm so ancient that I grew up in an age of waxed paper wrapped around my sandwiches and paper bags for my school lunches. My early toys were usually metal and they came in cardboard boxes. If I wanted a drink of water on a hot day I stuck my head under a tap (if Mom wasn't watching) or used a public fountain. Straws were made of paper and had pretty much collapsed by the end of the milkshake. Yes, I am a self-confessed geezer.

We didn't think much about the long-term residual effect of packaging because it wasn't the same issue in those days of yore. There were a lot less of us on the planet, we had much less stuff,  and we weren't concerned that most of what we owned was going to be around for another hundred years or clogging up the stomachs of birds and whales.



Now it is plastic, plastic, plastic on everything, everywhere. The oceans are awash with great rafts of it, and my blue box for plastics is always fuller than the one for paper. This has to change, and we need to be agents of change.

Why are we buying salad package in a plastic bag or box which we carry home in another plastic bag. Why do we put up with coffee cups that have lids which can't be recycled. Surely though they can invent fibre lids which are biodegradable and cups which aren't lined with plastic.  
Why isn't the law that manufacturers or retailers must take back the packaging of products they sell? And why do we buy so much for our kids and grandkids, supposedly because we love them, yet don't consider the nightmare we're creating for their lives. Actually, we already have.  

Today we can recognize that plastic is a spiritual crisis, that all creation is groaning under the weight of it all. We can also adopt the spiritual practice of considering what we purchase and how much of it. In God's name, enough already.

Getting Personal about Care for the Earth

Gina McCarthy

Scott Pruitt is the Donald Trump appointee who has been given the task of dismantling much of the good work of the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. I would call Administrator Pruitt a wolf in sheep's clothing, but that would dishonor wolves, which he would likely shoot anyway.

 

Gina McCarthy headed up the EPA during the Obama administration and she was a thoughtful and dedicated person. In 2016 she spoke from a personal standpoint at National Press Club luncheon in Washington. McCarthy, who was born the same year I was described her delight in the news that she and her husband would be grandparents for the first time. She realized that in the year 2050 her grandchild would be 32, — the year when science tells us we must be well on our way to a zero-carbon future, if we hope to keep carbon pollution to levels that avoid the most destructive impacts of climate change. She could have also mentioned that 2050 is the estimated year when plastic will outweigh fish in our oceans, a grim prediction.

I realized that in 2050 our three grandchildren will be roughly the ages our children are now, all of them in their thirties. Our kids will be in their sixties and we will likely be pushing up the proverbial daisies -- although Ruth may well be a spry nonagenarian. I feel that we Baby-boomers have messed up, and much of it has to do with the deadly sin of greed. Never has one generation been so blessed materially yet acted with such disregard for those who will follow us on this planet. We can point fingers at the miserable Trump administration yet we have dirty digits ourselves, and not in a good way. I am deeply disillusioned by the actions of our Canadian government in recent days.

McCarthy encouraged the attendees to "get personal" in their response to the challenges of caring for the planet. She quoted President Obama who stated in 2015, “We are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change and the last to be able to do something about it.” She went on to say that too many of us still view climate change as a distant threat, not the most significant threat to our communities, our families and our children. She finished by saying "When I think climate change, I see the face of my future grandson. Who is your face of a changing climate?"

Wise and challenging words I know whose faces I see. How about you?

I know whose faces I see. How about you?