Then Noah built an
altar to the Lord and, taking some of
all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.
The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never
again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every
inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I
destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime
and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
(Genesis
8:20-22)
I know that nature is
neither a person nor a god, so when I say this, I mean it entirely figurative.
Nature’s not being a lady at the moment. It’s not just that it’s springtime in
Erie, PA, because part of Nature’s unladylike behavior comes out of China, and
it’s worse in places other than Erie. That’s in addition to temperatures
dropping into the lower thirties with windchills taking it even lower.
Fortunately, it looks like one more night in the mid-thirties and we’ll be
heading into more normal temperatures. Please God!
No, Nature’s not being a lady, but nature has been far worse. Today’s passage marks the end of what was undoubtedly the worst Nature ever behaved. I’ve read theories of volcanic eruptions, giant geysers, and the collapse of a water-layer in the atmosphere. I’ve sometimes wondered if this is what caused the tectonic plates to form. It rained for forty days and forty nights and then it took about a year to dry.
I used to think that the water evaporated, and I’m sure some of it did, but some scientists are now saying that there’s more water under the earth’s crust than there is in the ocean.
So, after the flood, God made this promise: that He would not destroy the world with water again. From that day on, nature would follow a regular pattern – for the most part. This means that while some may see the end of the world in every little blip in the pattern, it’s not the end of the world.
Yesterday, I finally had someone make the over-the-top stupid statement that I want everyone to die. I had explained why it is there are people who aren’t happy with the whole lockdown idea. I had to point out to him that the Black Death killed between 30 and 50% of the Earth’s population, and H1N1-1918 killed about 30% of the population. COVID-19 currently has a morbidity rate of under one percent in the United States. I’m not saying it couldn’t get much worse. The second wave of the H1N1 virus was the one that did the most damage, but even Stephen King’s super flu from The Stand didn’t kill everyone. But when Nature is being particularly unladylike, well, it’s easy tunnel vision if you don’t have something to counteract it. But God has made a promise.
Actually, God has made lots of promises. According to one source I found, there are nearly 7,500 promises. Some may be made to a specific person, or a specific group. Some may be conditional while others are unconditional. Some require our involvement, others don’t. Today’s passage technically contains three. God would never again destroy the world with water. God would never again curse the ground because of humans. And, for as long as the earth endures, it will follow predictable patterns, even if every now and again we get thirties with a wind chill for five of seven days in May.
No, Nature’s not being a lady, but nature has been far worse. Today’s passage marks the end of what was undoubtedly the worst Nature ever behaved. I’ve read theories of volcanic eruptions, giant geysers, and the collapse of a water-layer in the atmosphere. I’ve sometimes wondered if this is what caused the tectonic plates to form. It rained for forty days and forty nights and then it took about a year to dry.
I used to think that the water evaporated, and I’m sure some of it did, but some scientists are now saying that there’s more water under the earth’s crust than there is in the ocean.
So, after the flood, God made this promise: that He would not destroy the world with water again. From that day on, nature would follow a regular pattern – for the most part. This means that while some may see the end of the world in every little blip in the pattern, it’s not the end of the world.
Yesterday, I finally had someone make the over-the-top stupid statement that I want everyone to die. I had explained why it is there are people who aren’t happy with the whole lockdown idea. I had to point out to him that the Black Death killed between 30 and 50% of the Earth’s population, and H1N1-1918 killed about 30% of the population. COVID-19 currently has a morbidity rate of under one percent in the United States. I’m not saying it couldn’t get much worse. The second wave of the H1N1 virus was the one that did the most damage, but even Stephen King’s super flu from The Stand didn’t kill everyone. But when Nature is being particularly unladylike, well, it’s easy tunnel vision if you don’t have something to counteract it. But God has made a promise.
Actually, God has made lots of promises. According to one source I found, there are nearly 7,500 promises. Some may be made to a specific person, or a specific group. Some may be conditional while others are unconditional. Some require our involvement, others don’t. Today’s passage technically contains three. God would never again destroy the world with water. God would never again curse the ground because of humans. And, for as long as the earth endures, it will follow predictable patterns, even if every now and again we get thirties with a wind chill for five of seven days in May.
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