The grace of summer is upon us.
Light snow was coming down this morning as I began this article for the July-August Restoration. The sight of snow made it a bit more difficult to start writing something summerish at this midpoint of April when I am actually writing this article.
Maybe I’ll just be stubborn this year and not write anything extolling the benefits of summer. Maybe I’ll carry it even further and write about endless winter and coping with same!
On the one hand, despite global warming and its advocates, who are legion, it seems that lately global warming has morphed into climate change, which is a term usually brought out when there is any notable anomaly in the weather.
Severe tornados are expected to hit Florida, due to climate change. No tornados this July? Very worrisome. That’s due to climate change as well. Hurricanes appear in the early fall: climate change. No serious hurricanes hit land, however—you guessed it — c.c.!
Smoke from Canadian forest fires is choking the American economy? Climate change is the main culprit. Tariffs are then raised against Canadian products sold in the USA. Also due to change in the climate (is there is any other reasonable explanation?)
Not to worry, though: whenever climate change involves heating up of oceans, lands, atmosphere, or underground caves, it still can be called global warming if one wishes.
On the other hand, living as we do here at latitude 45.2 degrees north, there was some comfort in the thought of global warming for populations living on the north side of 40 degrees latitude. Climate change is more ambiguous, as it seems that nobody wins except the doom-and-gloom types.
Snow still falling in April? Yes, after serious study, we have to say, “Well, isn’t that normal for you guys up there?” Except that we no longer have “normal” as a category, but we are taught that we must think catastrophically, and having lost out on the global warming bet, we must be satisfied with climate change for the worse, since there is no such thing as change for the better. Hmm.
However, I’m still having some trouble thinking or believing that everything is always going to turn out for the worst. If God is not only in his heaven but really everywhere in flesh and in spirit since the Ascension, then surely there is some chance for cosmic improvement from time to time and favorable divine intervention!
Especially if there are at least a few people who still believe in such things and are praying more or less constantly for God to save his people and bless his inheritance, which includes all of creation!
True, we have our own responsibility to take up and implement in the care of creation. We can’t just sit around expecting God to do all the work while we sit back on the beach at the seashore, polluting sand and sea with purchases made at the boardwalk.
But, surely, if God gave his life for our salvation, he must still have some vested interest in encouraging us in whatever good we do manage to accomplish.
The climate of faith may be a bit anemic in the West, but all those people who greeted Pope Leo in Angola and Cameroon and elsewhere in Africa seemed to be rather enthusiastic about what God,being good all the time, was doing, is doing, and will do.
Yes, there are a number of terrible, hate-filled wars being fought these days, and there does not appear to be an end in sight as it’s a very bad climate for peaceful negotiations when trust and good will are in such short supply. And in many cases, we seem to have brought it on ourselves, with very few, if any, participants innocent of blame.
Maybe we had it coming, in the sense of just judgment, or maybe not, but our intertwined world is certainly in grave danger, and it seems, in the end, that few are going to be spared paying the price for our blindness and our mistakes.
That’s about all the winter in July or August that I can handle at this point. Besides, I refuse to believe that this climate of our world today is absolutely destined for even further inroads of pessimism or especially the smug I-told-you-so that often goes with it.
Rather, the grace of summer is also upon us. It is the grace of mercy, peace, rest, and forgiveness. A time of contemplation, letting go of the frenzy of activity and work and maybe thereby getting a fresh perspective on life.
Maybe there is left to us yet a small frame of time to simply thank the Lord for his mercy and call on him for more of same. If enough people do so, maybe there’s a chance that the climate can yet change for the better.
For all the severity of various conflicts in the world today, the most important battles are still those being fought in our own hearts. Do we have hearts of flesh, or hearts of stone towards one another and towards God himself?
As summer is a kind of mercy from the rigors of winter, so may we be warm winds of mercy towards all.
Blessed is the merciful man, for he shall obtain mercy, not only in the hereafter, but also here in a mystical way. Indeed, what mercy is greater than this, that where a man is moved with compassion for his fellow man and becomes a partaker in his suffering? Our Lord delivers his soul from the gloom of darkness — which is the noetic Gehenna — and brings her into the light of life, thus filling her with delight. …
Instead of an avenger, be a deliverer. Instead of faultfinder, be a soother. Instead of a betrayer, be a martyr. Instead of a chider, be a defender. Beseech God on behalf of sinners that they receive mercy. …
Let the scale of mercy always be preponderant in you, until you perceive in yourself that mercy which God has for the world (St. Isaac the Syrian).
[From The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian, by H. Alfeyev, Collegeville Press, 2008, pp 72, 73.]
[image: Artwork by ©Susanne Stubbs, Madonna House]
