Though Fires Rage...

Southern California is a mess. I see it on the news. I see it on satellite imaging. I see it on the faces of people who are displaced. Tragic doesn't begin to describe it as people are once again huddled into a stadium. They lately seem to be used more for temporary housing then for sporting events.

What are we to make of this fire? What are we to say to those who lose everything when this sign of progress, this sign of human achievement, becomes a sign of human despair? We were promised never to be destroyed again by water. That much we know. But what about fire? What about those other elements. What about those things that come from our own hand. Will they destroy us?

Even here there is hope. We run to God, as the Psalmist writes in 46. Fire can't destroy those walls. But what about the meantime? It's in the meantime we live. It's in the meantime we pray that, though the earth give way and mountains fall into the sea, we will not fear because there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

I leave you with a word from our brother Peterson:

Huge cloud fists assault
The blue exposed bare midriff of sky:
The firmament doubles up in pain.
Lightnings rip and thunders shout;
Mother nature's children quarrel.
And then, as suddenly as it began,
It's over. Noah's heirs, perceptions
Cleansed, look out on the disarmed world
At ease and ozone fragrant. Still waters.
What barometric shift
Rearranged these ferocities
Into a peace-pulsating rainbow
Sign? My enemy turns his other
Cheek; I drop my guard. A mirror
Lake reflects the filtered colors;
Breeze-stirred pine trees quietly sing.

See you in church,
VT...