RBWords - Volume 24 - Number 8: August 2011
Something to Think About
Psalm 19 says: The heavens proclaim the glory of God and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands…. I have just returned from giving a retreat to aspirants to the Permanent Diaconate and their spouses from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.. During my time in the area there was an earthquake and a hurricane! The earth and the sky definitely showed muscle. I did not experience this particular earthquake (5.8) very much since I was in a moving vehicle at the time, nor did I experience much of Hurricane Irene since the retreat facility was on the western edge of the weather. However, I was very much in the big earthquake in Oakland, CA, in October 1989, and being from Louisiana, I am no stranger to tropical storms! The sixth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina can remind us that to experience any natural event (disaster?) of this kind has a different impact than taking a telescope and pondering the starry universe. When the air one breathes is filled with howling wind and sheets of falling rain, or the ground one stands on is shaking and books and pictures are falling on one’s head in one’s room, the matter becomes more immediate than the stars! As Casca says to Cicero in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “Are not you unmov’d, when all the sway of earth shakes like a thing unfirm?” [Act I, Scene 3]
For the last nine years I have been spending a few days each summer on the Pacific coast of Oregon. I am always awed by the incredible size and motion of that great body of water. I also see the warning signs on the highway about “tsunami” dangers! On one occasion I had to evacuate because of one of those warnings (nothing happened much other than the warning). The incredible might of nature can truly humble us humans who are inclined to think that we are the center of God’s creation. We can also forget that we are not the Creator! Nature has its own “personality” and our use of the term “act of God” (mostly now by insurance companies and jurisprudence) is a misnomer. We are intelligent, but we are also puny by comparison to an earthquake or hurricane. The best we can do is hunker down or get out of the way! IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!
It Has Been Said
The heavens proclaim the glory of God and the firmament shows forth the word of his hands. Day unto day takes up the story and night unto night makes known the message. No speech, no word, no voice is heard yet their span extends through all the earth, their words to the utmost bounds of the world.
From Psalm 19:2-5 [Grail Translation]