MOTHER NATURE

Last week I was sitting in my office speaking with my wife as she walked through the woods behind our home. She told me that it was a gorgeous fall day outside and she was thrilled to be outdoors. When we hung up, I looked outside my window. Sure enough, the sun was shining, glistening off the waters of the Allegheny River. The temperature was in the high 50s and the wind was blowing. “Wow!” I said to myself. Good time for a walk.

Off I went to Dunkin Donuts a few blocks up for the cup of coffee that I needed and the donut I did not; but I was going to walk off the donut anyway, justifying to myself why I was defeating the purpose of the walk in the first place. On the way to the shop I encountered three men from one of the local yard-care companies blowing leaves off a property they were paid to tend. As fast as they blew the leaves from the grass, just as fast did Mother Nature’s wind blow them back. We all got a kick out of their futile work.

Earlier in the day I received a note from a friend who wrote to tell me that a former parishioner had finally died after a long, long bout with dementia. On the morning news were reports that the lava from the volcano in Hawaii was ready to destroy many homes in its unrelenting and unstopping path. And there was the news that Gordie Howe, the great Hall of Fame hockey player from the past had been struck down by a stroke. Mother Nature at work.

Then, of course, amid all of this news – and before and after and forever and ever – come the advertisements about how we can defeat, or at least delay, the ravages of Mother Nature: take this pill, go on the diet, visit this athletic club, have this surgery to make you look younger, etc. and etc. Of course there were the disclaimers that the pills were not approved by the FDA or that the side effects could kill or maim you before Mother Nature did. They may be able to make us look younger but they can’t actually make us younger. As for proper exercise and diet: that works only to a degree and especially to the degree we are willing to stick to it. Good luck on that!

Try as we might to defeat the realities of Mother Nature, in the end we always lose. That’s not so bad when we know what is in store for us when that end comes: eternal life when there is no wind to blow back the leaves, no pills to take to feel better, no surgery needed to make us look better, no exercise needed to stay fit. And if there is food in the life to come, I can eat all the donuts my heart desires and not put on an ounce. Wow!

But there is another “wow!” to consider, a “wow” in the here and now, in this life. In fact, the “wow” IS this life, the one God has given us and with which we are blessed despite the ways and whims of Mother Nature. Perhaps if we spent more time enjoying this life instead of fighting against it, in spite of the trials and hardships from Mother Nature from which no one escapes no matter how hard we try, we can look out our windows every day, in spite of any pain we may be in, and simply utter “Wow, wow! Thank you, God.”