Perfect Storm

Terrific disasters and successes are often described as "the perfect storm" meaning that a number of events must come together at the same time in order to produce such history altering occasions. In weather events perfect, and not so perfect, storms have been referred to as "an act of God". When we can't explain the horrible tragedy or even the uncanny good that happens to someone, religious folk often say something about "God's will" or a new spiritualist expression, "it's a God thing". When life takes an unpredictable turn or clearly changes abruptly from what is normally expected our first reaction is to blame or congratulate God for the event.

This goes back to some very primitive feelings that life is not predictable and certainly not in our realm to control. Therefore, it must be that which is greater and beyond us that is in control. And though we don't always understand the why, it is totally in the interest of self-assuring to believe that there is a greater power and higher wisdom that knows why it is happening so we, therefore, have to take what is given us as a positive.

On the surface I don't find much wrong with this reasoning but it is a bit shallow, I think. For example, when earth, wind and fire changes our lives, to what extent is such happenings manipulated by that which we term God as a means of goodness or judgment upon us? Or is it more just the way nature happens, or the result of our being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or some decision someone (perhaps ourselves) made that put us in the place of combating horrific odds of success or failure?

Now, to be sure, the predictable boundaries of human behavior and creation's ebb and flow are so reliable that we can pronounce such borders as dangerous to cross. Jump out of a tree and gravity will see to it that pain comes quickly. However, the cause of such judgments are not always evident. In ancient times, before satellites, radar and predicting computer models, we simply declared an "act of God", meaning, we know there is an explanation but we have no idea what it is. Today, scientific minds know the why or that if the why is not immediately known further research will one day find the answer. We stake our lives on it.

Historical events are very much the same. Life bounces along with human development or decline until circumstances happen that make a radical and significant change. It is a statement of our 'faith' when we say that God is behind these things. Faith meaning 'trust' in the way that creation and human life for millions of years has born out that we are moving towards a greater good. Behind that greater good is what we refer to when we state that God's work or 'hand' can be seen in history.

The very brief history of what Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Philo brought to the historical landscape at the time of Jesus cannot be lightly emphasized. All of the earliest Christian writers, especially Paul and the composers of the four Gospel stories of Jesus' life, were Greek speaking Jewish Christians. They had a foot in both the Jewish and modern Greek/Roman world. They were trying to interpret the best of Judaism's monotheistic understanding of how God has been involved in our human existence in the context of a culture whose philosophy lent itself to similar thinking. The result was moving light years forward in religious development that would shape and be shaped by a world moving toward modernity.

A modern mind would be correct to look at these events and say it was no more than just a perfect storm or highly predictable coincidence. But just as correct would be a mind of faith that sees behind all human history a force moving creation towards a greater good. Both assumptions are a matter of where we choose to put our trust for life.

Finish that coffee and we'll pick this up again.

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