The seashore is lovely, and I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else. Setting yourself down on the beach and gazing into the sand, sea, and sky is like coming face to face with forever, the beauty of the infinite.
But there’s a dark side, and it goes by many names. Today, its name is Dorian. It is the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin. It has already inflicted horrendous damage on the Bahamas.
At this writing (on the eve of Dorian’s arrival), who knows what damage will be visited upon the southeastern Atlantic seaboard, upon the gentle fields and marshes, the cyprus swamps and pine groves, of the tender Carolina lowlands?
There is a hard, gnawing spot that grows right behind your forehead when a hurricane approaches, and you’re in the crosshairs. Dorian looks, and acts, like a monster. When you’re in the “forecast cone of concern,” the cyclone literally looms over the horizon as a dark formless disaster, so dark that it snuffs out all hope.
Of course it is important to combat thoughts like these, as the Prophet David did in Psalm 76 (LXX). He was afflicted, completely cut off from hope and help. And he cried out, “Will God forget to be merciful, or will He withhold His compassion?”
Then something happens. David says, “Now I have begun to see: this is a change being wrought by the right hand of the Most High … I will meditate on all Your work, I will ponder upon Your doings. Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God? You are the God Who creates miracles” (Psalm 76.9-14 LXX).
“This is a change being wrought by God.” That is a most important phrase. In pondering and meditating upon His works, His Creation, we are able to recognize the presence of God. Creation (what many people call “Mother Nature”) is beautiful, and is beautiful precisely because it is an divine artwork that shows the glory of God.
God’s loving wisdom extends from the human heart even to the furthest heights of the cosmos: “He shall heal the shattered in heart, He shall bind up all their wounds. He measures the multitude of stars, calling each one of them by name” (Psalm 146.3-4 LXX).
Even the sea – about which the ancient Hebrews were more fearful than not – is the place where God is met: “Were I to spread out my wings and fly straight to the dawn, taking up home in the farthest reach of the sea, even there shall Your hand lead me, Your right hand shall hold fast to me” (Psalm 138.9-10 LXX).
It is this providential wisdom that we fix our hearts to and set our minds upon. When we do so, we can see Him standing in the stern of our little boat, even in the tumult of a disordered, tumultuous Sea of Galilee: “Peace, be still.” And the storm passed away.
“This is a change being wrought.” Indeed. I don’t see Dorian as a formless mass of terror, an utterly inexhorable darkness that snuffs out hope. Our God reigns. And “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4.13). “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4.4). “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8.38-39).
Nor hurricanes like Dorian.
That said, whence Dorian? If Creation is essentially good, then where did Dorian come from?
From God? Did God send Dorian, perhaps to punish us on the eastern seaboard? After all, some famous (and not Orthodox at all) preachers said that God set Katrina on New Orleans just to punish the place for its sinfulness and to glorify His name. Even if one wouldn’t want to go that far (because by rights, shouldn’t He be sending hurricanes everywhere then, because of sinfulness?), isn’t it true that whatever happens (even hurricanes and tornadoes, earthquake, fire, and flood) is God’s Will? Simply because it happened?
No. Not everything that happens is God’s Will. If that were so, we wouldn’t have been told by Jesus Himself to pray “Thy Will be done.” It is Jesus Christ Who brings “Peace on earth, good will to men.”
The goodness, the good will that comes from God alone, is surely not the same as "what happens." Reality is not pre-determined. If you believe that, you are really believing in the pagan despair of fatalism. The angelic chorale that heralded the Nativity announced a new age of Goodness, not a different arrangement of power and economy.
God’s Will is only a good will. “Shall You be present on a throne of iniquity that frames evils by law?” David once asked of God (Psalm 93.20 LXX). “No!” David responds pretty forthrightly: “My Lord is upright, there is no unrighteousness in him” (Psalm 91.15 LXX). “Do not ever speak wickedness of God” (Psalm 74.5 LXX).
The foster-brother of Jesus and Bishop of Jerusalem makes it clear that hurricanes (or any other bad thing) do not come from God: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 3.17).
So if God didn’t send Dorian, who (or what) did?
The story of the Righteous Job tells us some crucial things about hurricanes and bad things in general. One thing is that they are not from God. Another thing is that humans are either incapable of understanding why a particular event was allowed to happen to a particular person, or they are not permitted to do so -- simply because such understanding requires infinite wisdom. Without ever explaining the larger “meta-framework” of Satan’s test, God pretty much told poor Job “you can’t handle the truth.”
Far, far more important than Job getting satisfied with an explanation of theodicy was the promise that God gave him: that He, God, would always stay close to Job, and that He would redeem his bad situation in the end. Which He did, in spades.
In short, it can be said that “natural” disasters like hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and global warming are anything but “natural.” They are patently unnatural. They are not at all the way the world was created to be. To be sure, human evil can account for some of this: the Amazon fires and pollution are the direct result of human pride and sloth.
In general, though, natural disasters are the result of evil, the Fall of Mankind, and especially the Fall of the Satanic Angels. Remember that every physical structure of the world is under the custodianship of the bodiless powers – St Basil says that a third of these rebelled against the Creator, and set into motion the brokenness of the world.
Forget the crazy (and craven) political rhetoric about environmentalism from the left and the right. Whether or not human industry affects global warming, we should all be better stewards of God’s Creation. We should consume less. We should be gentler, more thankful about each creature. We should attend to the Orthodox care for the environment that Patriarch Bartholomew has worked so hard to call attention to.
In a moment of disorder and destruction, even in the face of abject evil -- whether human or demonic -- our response must be meek and faithful, of childlike trust. Certainly not engaging in a philosophy that severs communion, that attributes voluntaristic cruelty (and non-personhood) to the only One Who can help, and say, in the end, "Peace, be still."
Every year on September 1st, the Orthodox Church remembers Creation, especially as it has been affected by failures of human irresponsibility. It calls us, in a special service of prayers, to once again view Creation as “the sweetness of heaven overflowing onto the earth.” It invites us to walk into the daylight and to heed the voice of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who reminds us that “there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” It beckons us to recognize the artistic work of the Holy Trinity in every particle of Creation -- as William Blake recommends to see “Heaven in a wildflower.”’
It is time to attend to this day.
Meanwhile, pray for those in harm’s way. check on how you’re praying. Pray as a child, so pray for help. Pray that people and children and animals don’t get hurt. And if there is harm done, pray for healing, help and comfort. During times of crisis I do not ask God why things happen, or why particular things happen to particular people. If you’re a religious, believing person, then this next line might make some sense: not everything that happens is God’s Will, else why do we pray “Thy Will be done”?
God’s Will is only a good will.
With that, I’ll leave you with my favorite literary line of all time, from “Il Paradiso” in Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Here it is in the original, beautiful Italian: “E'n la sua volontade è nostra pace.” Usually, that is translated “In His Will is our peace” -- which is true, of course, but that is not a completely accurate translation.
This one is better: “He wills for us our peace.” Our peace is God’s Will.
Even when Dorian comes.
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