Calamity
…is distress, ‘an event causing great harm or loss and affliction’, misfortune, disaster.
“Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.” ~Joseph Addison
Calamity is on my mind, embedding itself in my experience as devastating wildfires voraciously rage throughout the west, flash flooding is driving people from their homes in the east. Hundreds of innocent children remain separated from their parents and held in the equivalent of internment camps.
It is an odd juxtaposition for me. Returning home Saturday from a beautiful wedding, sharing and celebrating it’s joyous promise and then seeing the ghastly specter of billowing smoke from the Lake County fires to the north, and the vastness of the burnt ridge tops and hillsides of last October’s calamitous Tubbs fire directly before me, was difficult.
“Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.” ~William Davenaut
As so many of you know, my ‘go to’ is faith. To reduce my cognitive dissonance, I pray.
“Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.” ~Samuel Richardson
I am clearly an optimist. But my optimism rises and is supported by faith. As Winston Churchill is widely quoted, a “great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants.”
“He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.” ~Harry Emerson Fosdick
These are surely trying times. The world is experiencing great upheavals; the earth itself is crying calamity. Yet, there are those brilliant moments of hope, joy, love, compassion, understanding and faith. Hold fast to them!
Blessings!
