The rain won\u2019t stop. In fact, it\u2019s getting worse. We\u2019ve been awake since four in the morning, listening to the sound of water pounding on the skylight and running off the roof.
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0By six Milt is asking if it\u2019s time to build an ark. I shudder while recalling the Old Testament story that has terrified and terrorized countless Sunday School children down through the ages, finally prompting one precocious youngster to remark,
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think much of God for drowning all those people!\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0This truly is the season that reawakens the dichotomies of good and evil, light and dark, compassion and selfishness. Ancient Scandinavian tales of Odin riding through the world at midwinter bringing reward or punishment have morphed into our Santa Claus twice checking his list of naughty and nice.
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 I grew up outside of Boston imbued with Puritan\/Calvinist doctrines of being pre-ordained by god for the good life: if you were prosperous, god had clearly chosen you; if you were poor, you somehow deserved it and thus god was punishing you.
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Now, in the growing morning light, I stare out at the expanding puddles of water and worry about the homeless huddled in sleeping bags beneath our Las Vegas bridges: I couldn\u2019t help but notice the lumps of dark fabric on the sidewalks as I left the women\u2019s shelter last evening. The less fortunate ones among us are no longer abstractions to me; they have names and faces, as well as narratives that I am honored to listen to once a month.
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 It is a humbling experience. The stories I bear witness to have little to do with reward or punishment, and often display more heroism and human dignity than those shared by many of the more fortunate people I know and love. Go figure!!
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 It is clearly time to update the ancient stories!
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 But my energy and enthusiasm for anything is draining away in the persistent gloom and unending rain. While the steady downpour lets up briefly by noon just as the puddles in my backyard begin to merge into one huge pool, by afternoon it starts all over again. Local news stations warn us about flash flooding and show which roads have already washed out. Red Rock Canyon in the Spring Mountains behind my house is closed because of the water gushing through rocks and down arroyos. Detention basins the size of several football fields are filling up.
\nIs this a taste of the coming deluge due to polar ice melt? It is not just Bangladesh and New Orleans that are at risk!
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Any new story must somehow deal with the image of our planet from lunar orbit: on this actual ark sailing through the ocean of deep space we are all on the ride together! This was the REAL message beamed back to us from lunar orbit that Christmas Eve in 1968: we are all of us saved and chosen just by virtue of having become the consciousness of the emergent Universe reflecting upon itself!
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Surely that\u2019s not about to be stifled because of our stupidity and stubbornness. Most people who have stopped long enough to consider the consequences of global warming have concluded that the Earth will simply shuck us off like a bad investment of time and energy and start all over again.
\nI can\u2019t accept that. I am not willing to give up on us yet. For after all, this, the darkest time of our year, is the season of hope. Miracles happen! Suddenly the doorbell rings. I open to the dark cold rain of late afternoon and find three packages on my porch\u2026. gifts from my daughters and granddaughters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The rain won\u2019t stop. In fact, it\u2019s getting worse. We\u2019ve been awake since four in the morning, listening to the sound of water pounding on the skylight and running off the roof. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0By six Milt is asking if it\u2019s time to build an ark. I shudder while recalling the Old Testament story that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecting-consciousness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}