Force of nature: Anthony Gimpel’s world view

‘Nature is infinitely more powerful than any combination of puny human beings.’

We are living in times full of fear. But maybe there is nothing particularly new in this state. Ever since Pandora disobeyed and opened the box to find that the only thing left to her was hope – the spirit that assures us we are OK – we have had an astonishing capacity to scare ourselves. Yet perhaps the more remarkable fact is that huge numbers of us have survived – prospered, even, and multiplied just as God promised Abraham.

Consider diseases like the Black Death. By all reason that should have wiped us out. It didn’t. Consider Hitler’s vow to exterminate every Jew. He failed. Consider the ability of weeds to continue to flourish in your vegetable garden despite all your efforts to kill them once and for all. Nature is infinitely more powerful than any combination of puny human beings.

Take a look on a sunny day. The furthest you can see (though be careful of your eyes) is the sun at approximately ninety three million miles. Amazing? Well, go out and look that same night. Take a telescope if you want. Billions of galaxies, containing billions of stars, are billions upon billions upon billions of miles away. And sing to yourself, what a wonderful world.

And yet: the pandemic, climate change, species extinction, crops failing, lorry drivers, email scams, buy this, buy that, go on holiday, isolate, cover your face…Cry! I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

Here are two simple things each one of us can do. (Did I say simple?)

First, appreciate that there is no such thing as an environment that is separate from human beings. We are intimately bound into the stuff of life. Life is in us and we are in life. There is no separation. If you desire proof then look at any living thing: a leaf on a tree, a blade of grass, a spider, an elephant, and know that the physical and chemical processes which drive the cells in each of those, and in us, are the same in every case.

The second is more of a challenge. Yes, four, five or six centuries ago, Europeans discovered the power of our minds to analyse nature. We have made unbelievable strides in mastering those same physical and chemical processes to our apparent advantage. Huge populations of human beings now live as if we were independent of the nature that is intrinsic inside us. Science and technology and their cohorts of engineers have given us comforts only dreamt of in previous times. And hubris. The observer is discounted. The observer who hears reality is pushed into oblivion because we know (!) we can design our way out of whatever crisis arrives. It isn’t true. Listen. Pray. Watch and pray.

Be still and know that I am God. God is not an uncle. God is a hurricane. God is an earthquake.

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Comments

For more of Anthony Gimpel’s writing see _Friends Quarterly_ January 2022 = “From sacrifice to Forgiving” pages 23 to 29
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By Vernon White on 20th January 2022 - 18:30

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