8.9
The earthquake off the northern coast of Japan and ensuing tsunami is astounding.
Words are wholly inadequate to describe the power of this volume of water. Perhaps even more indescribable is the power of the earth's shift six miles below.
Through the video footage broadcast today, I've seen an enormous wall of water carry large industrial buildings; toss large ships, tugs, trucks and smaller automobiles (like we toss lettuce in tossed salad); initiate huge fires as it severed gas lines and destroyed processing plants; and leave a shocked nation in mourning for the loss of life.
In modernity, we explain these events scientifically; yet we still use the term "act of God" to describe "a direct, sudden, and irresistible action of natural forces that could not reasonably have been foreseen or prevented, such as a flood, hurricane, earthquake, or other natural catastrophe."
I don't know what events prompted David to write what we now know as Psalm 29, but it seems to me like he must have witnessed some significant acts of God. Listen to this:
"Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
"The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion [Mt. Hermon] like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord strikes
with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, 'Glory!'
"The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord is enthroned as King forever.
The Lord gives strength to his people;
the Lord blesses his people with peace."
Even further in antiquity, Job spoke similarly in his distress:
"I know this is true, but how can mere mortals prove their innocence before God? Though they wished to dispute with him, they could not answer him one time out of a thousand. His wisdom is profound, his power is vast. Who has resisted him and come out unscathed? He moves mountains without their knowing it and overturns them in his anger. He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. When he passes me, I cannot perceive him. If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, 'What are you doing?' God does not restrain his anger; even the cohorts of Rahab cowered at his feet. How then can I dispute with him? How can I find words to argue with him? Even if I were innocent, I could not answer him. I could only plead with my Judge for mercy."
James Kugel, a Harvard professor, recently published an interesting book entitled "In the Valley of the Shadow." Ten years ago, Kugel was diagnosed with an aggressive, likely fatal, form of cancer. Although he was concerned, disturbed and worried, the thing that struck him most was that "the background music (of life) suddenly stopped" and was "replaced by nothing, just silence." This phenomenon gave him an uncanny feeling of human smallness; and yet he was struck by the fact that something was "overwhelmingly true" about that feeling. He purposed to address that feeling in print if life gave him the chance because he thought the exercise would help him discover something about the "starting point of religious consciousness."
Life gave him the chance to address his question, and I recommend his book.
One real question that emerges in a situation like Kugel's (which is common to individual experiences and also like Job's) or in a situation like today's tsunami in Japan (which is similar to what David describes in Psalm 29) is how humans came to believe that God is loving.
In a polytheistic world, it was easy. Some gods were loving, and some were not. Some gods gave good things, and some gods inflicted pain. But a remarkable thing happened as monotheism became established -- people in ancient times still believed that God was good and loving, despite the sufferings they endured.
Kugel attributes part of this remarkable reaction to a "starkness" in antiquity that we individuals in contemporary life seldom feel because we live in relative comfort today. Kugel describes this "starkness" as he notes that early humans lived in a world where God was BIG and NEAR, and man was small. Only very recently in human history have we reached the point where we actually think differently -- that is, that Man is BIG, and God is small and distant.
Kugel suggests that we have so explained things scientifically today that we view ourselves BIGGER . . . until . . . something strikes us individually (like cancer) or strikes us collectively (like a catastrophic act of God). When you're staring death eye-to-eye, Kugel notes, there is something that takes you back to the notion that, after all the evidence is in, God is BIG and man is small. Even as an academic at the pinnacle of academia, he found that rootedness oddly comforting.
To me, the starkness he describes is a peace that grabs us when we have the time to realize that "we are not in control, but there is more to life than living and dying." We benefit when we realize that there is something beyond all this, which will be far better than what we experience here. C.S. Lewis said it this way: "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."
For the residents of northern Japan today and the residents in Southeast Asia affected by the tsunami in 2004, I pray so.
Words are wholly inadequate to describe the power of this volume of water. Perhaps even more indescribable is the power of the earth's shift six miles below.
Through the video footage broadcast today, I've seen an enormous wall of water carry large industrial buildings; toss large ships, tugs, trucks and smaller automobiles (like we toss lettuce in tossed salad); initiate huge fires as it severed gas lines and destroyed processing plants; and leave a shocked nation in mourning for the loss of life.
In modernity, we explain these events scientifically; yet we still use the term "act of God" to describe "a direct, sudden, and irresistible action of natural forces that could not reasonably have been foreseen or prevented, such as a flood, hurricane, earthquake, or other natural catastrophe."
I don't know what events prompted David to write what we now know as Psalm 29, but it seems to me like he must have witnessed some significant acts of God. Listen to this:
"Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
"The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion [Mt. Hermon] like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord strikes
with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, 'Glory!'
"The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord is enthroned as King forever.
The Lord gives strength to his people;
the Lord blesses his people with peace."
Even further in antiquity, Job spoke similarly in his distress:
"I know this is true, but how can mere mortals prove their innocence before God? Though they wished to dispute with him, they could not answer him one time out of a thousand. His wisdom is profound, his power is vast. Who has resisted him and come out unscathed? He moves mountains without their knowing it and overturns them in his anger. He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. When he passes me, I cannot perceive him. If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, 'What are you doing?' God does not restrain his anger; even the cohorts of Rahab cowered at his feet. How then can I dispute with him? How can I find words to argue with him? Even if I were innocent, I could not answer him. I could only plead with my Judge for mercy."
James Kugel, a Harvard professor, recently published an interesting book entitled "In the Valley of the Shadow." Ten years ago, Kugel was diagnosed with an aggressive, likely fatal, form of cancer. Although he was concerned, disturbed and worried, the thing that struck him most was that "the background music (of life) suddenly stopped" and was "replaced by nothing, just silence." This phenomenon gave him an uncanny feeling of human smallness; and yet he was struck by the fact that something was "overwhelmingly true" about that feeling. He purposed to address that feeling in print if life gave him the chance because he thought the exercise would help him discover something about the "starting point of religious consciousness."
Life gave him the chance to address his question, and I recommend his book.
One real question that emerges in a situation like Kugel's (which is common to individual experiences and also like Job's) or in a situation like today's tsunami in Japan (which is similar to what David describes in Psalm 29) is how humans came to believe that God is loving.
In a polytheistic world, it was easy. Some gods were loving, and some were not. Some gods gave good things, and some gods inflicted pain. But a remarkable thing happened as monotheism became established -- people in ancient times still believed that God was good and loving, despite the sufferings they endured.
Kugel attributes part of this remarkable reaction to a "starkness" in antiquity that we individuals in contemporary life seldom feel because we live in relative comfort today. Kugel describes this "starkness" as he notes that early humans lived in a world where God was BIG and NEAR, and man was small. Only very recently in human history have we reached the point where we actually think differently -- that is, that Man is BIG, and God is small and distant.
Kugel suggests that we have so explained things scientifically today that we view ourselves BIGGER . . . until . . . something strikes us individually (like cancer) or strikes us collectively (like a catastrophic act of God). When you're staring death eye-to-eye, Kugel notes, there is something that takes you back to the notion that, after all the evidence is in, God is BIG and man is small. Even as an academic at the pinnacle of academia, he found that rootedness oddly comforting.
To me, the starkness he describes is a peace that grabs us when we have the time to realize that "we are not in control, but there is more to life than living and dying." We benefit when we realize that there is something beyond all this, which will be far better than what we experience here. C.S. Lewis said it this way: "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."
For the residents of northern Japan today and the residents in Southeast Asia affected by the tsunami in 2004, I pray so.