This morning the headlines on the local news are quite simple. There have been 68 deaths to date in the US and Canada from the Frankenstorm. We need to add to that about the same number in the Caribbean. The full death toll and damage is not known. Breitbart pointed out that the internet stayed up… but the internet cannot keep you warm, nor feed you, nor shelter you from rising tides.
Now, for the last few years there has been an argument stating that using nature as a justification for things is passe. Queer theory argues that we can do what we like because we can control nature, we have the ability to live by different rules. However, this does not quite work out, as one poor Gay couple have just found out. (We now get a sense of the UK privilege rules: Female trumps Ghey).
Arguing from nature is biblical. Consider this.
1An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.
2A jealous and avenging God is the Lord,
the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
and rages against his enemies.
3The Lord is slow to anger but great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4He rebukes the sea and makes it dry,
and he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither,
and the bloom of Lebanon fades.
5The mountains quake before him,
and the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
the world and all who live in it.6Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and by him the rocks are broken in pieces.
7The Lord is good,
a stronghold on a day of trouble;
he protects those who take refuge in him,
8 even in a rushing flood.
He will make a full end of his adversaries,
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
9Why do you plot against the Lord?
He will make an end;
no adversary will rise up twice.
10Like thorns they are entangled,
like drunkards they are drunk;
they are consumed like dry straw.
11From you one has gone out
who plots evil against the Lord,
one who counsels wickedness.12Thus says the Lord,
“Though they are at full strength and many,
they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
I will afflict you no more.
13And now I will break off his yoke from you
and snap the bonds that bind you.”14 The Lord has commanded concerning you:
“Your name shall be perpetuated no longer;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
the carved image and the cast image.
I will make your grave, for you are worthless.”
Now, this storm has hit the good and the bad, the innocent and the guilty, the faithful and the faithless. At present the energies of almost everyone on the North Atlantic Seaboard — from the Gulf of St Lawrence to the WIndward Islands — has to be around cleaning up, rescuing people, restoring sewage, water and power, feeding survivors and then mourning for the dead.
But we have a warning in Nahum. Move too far from God, start ignoring the natural order (which is graven in us, without the ward), we are making an idol of ourselves. And that God, as Nahum said, will fail.