#weather #fail

There's nothing quite like a snowstorm at the end of April to remind you that life is an uncertain mistress. One day she's smiling on you like a warm sunshiny friend, and the next she's trying to dampen your mood like a sullen ex-girlfriend.

And I had such great plans for today, too. I was going to go for a nice long walk this morning; I had my water bottle ready and everything! Oh well, I guess it could be worse. I feel pretty bad for my neighbor who spent the weekend building a huge cabana and hasn't got the roof on yet. Ick. (He's been pretty industrious lately. He built a really nice fence two weekends ago. Props to him.)

I think tomorrow I'll curl up with a nice cup of hot chocolate and pretend the ground isn't covered with goopy slush. And pray that my beloved crab apple tree will still bloom this year. It's like a crazy pink explosion! I love it.


There's so much about this earth - this world - that I don't understand. It can be so overwhelming in its beauty. A yellow flower. A bird making its secret hiding place inside a hand-painted birdhouse. A tree coated in a thin layer of scintillating ice. The shadowy darkness of a gathering storm.

The Romantic poets talked about what they called the Sublime: an experience of overwhelming terror and smallness coupled with the overflowing joy of great beauty. It was found in the experience of nature. Some might call it 'awe.' It's what you feel when standing before a majestic waterfall and simply beholding it. The Romantics believed that you could encounter the Divine in nature. It's like being outside on the yard in a tent while lightning strikes - the sheer power of that force, its wildness and uncontainability.

While I'm not sure I believe in Pantheism or Panentheism (in fact, I'm pretty sure I don't), something deeply true is expressed in that great hymn, "How Great Thou Art." This world and its sometimes appalling beauty speaks to us about the depths to which God loves His creation. The sheer joy of it and fear of it can bring you to your knees. Who can look upon burning fire issuing forth from the earth and not feel awe?

The wonder felt in the experience of nature can be a stepping stone toward a relationship with God because it contains the realization that there is so much more to this life than you. Each seed is a life made by God and a world unto itself.

The world does not belong to us and we do not control it. It is not about us. Today's #weather #fail reminds us of that. We are lives held carefully within something so much greater that we cannot comprehend it. We are held, with the world and all fragile things, by the hand of Him to Whom we belong.


"Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no further, and here shall your proud waves be stayed?' [...] Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? [...] Have you entered the storehouses of snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail [...] What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth? [...] Who has put wisdom in the clouds, or given understanding to the mists? Who can number the clouds by wisdom? [...] Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? On the rock he dwells and makes his home in the fastness of the rocky crag." (Job 38:8-39:28)