Only once ever did a man introduce himself to me as bad, and
that turned out to be Mr. Mann with a head cold. It seems to be the
conceit of enormous swaths of humankind that they number among the
good. So much so that when ill befalls their lot, they imagine
themselves equipped with evidence to indict God — if not for
malice aforethought, then certainly for negligence. ‘Tis scarce
indeed to encounter one so schooled in humility that he’d say like
Macduff:
“…Did heaven look on
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am.
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls…”
Or like Jonah in the Bible explaining the typhoon that lashed
the ship carrying citizens of many nations: “Lift me and place me
into the sea and the sea will be silenced from upon you, because I
know that it is because of mine [sins] that this great hurricane is
upon you.” (Jonah 1:12)
It’s Thanksgiving and here we stand as a nation, bloodied by the
predations of Bin Laden and Zarqawi and the depredations of
Katrina, Rita and Wilma, and we wonder what it all means. Macduff
again:
“…each new morn
New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
…and yell’d out
Like syllable of dolour.”
Having suffered somewhat in each of these hurricanes as they
visited Miami, I can bear witness to some of those dolorous
syllables. Not for me to chastise in random flourishes; I’m no
better than anyone else. Yet, after sixteen days in the dark when
Wilma scourged our power grids, I can deliver one message with a
measure of clarity. We are guilty of a lack of thanksgiving, a
dearth of gratefulness, a shortfall of appreciation, for the
blessings that God bestows through technology. Even those disposed
to thank for their health and wealth and family are apt to dodge
their debt of gratitude for the machinery that enhances their
life.
Let’s start with electricity to power our homes. This was not
imported from another galaxy, it was something built into the
fabric of our world. Yet it hovered beyond our reach for over five
thousand years of recorded history. All the great men of history,
all of our ancestors, all the people who brought us to where we are
today, did it without the benefit of a heater in winter and an air
conditioner in summer. They spent many an exertive hour flailing at
frozen trees with hatchets for a few cords of firewood or hacking
at frozen lakes to dislodge blocks of ice for cooling.
Our mothers lost so much of their lives in the arduous
painstaking tasks of washing dishes and clothing by hand. Without
washing machines and dryers, without dishwashers, every speck of
grime on a dish or a cloth exacted a toll in strenuous labor. And
time, always time, as great lives ticked away with hands elbow-deep
in murky water. We are gifted with a great bounty of hours freed
from bondage, open for creativity. Pieces of our lives have already
experienced their Exodus and their Messiah; no woman should ever
again have to lose an afternoon churning butter.
What of refrigerators to store food and enable us to limit the
adventure — and burden — of food shopping to once-weekly binges
instead of daily grinds? How about ovens that cook by flipping a
switch and microwaves that reheat in moments? These enhance the
flavor of our lives and emancipate our time and energy, all
utilizing materials that were provided in nature from its inception
but revealed ever so slowly. Not to mention indoor plumbing and
water heating.
Transportation is rendered nothing less than miraculous. Indeed
the Jewish tradition speaks of miracles that occurred enabling
certain characters in the Bible to travel great distances in short
times. For instance, it teaches that Abraham’s servant got from
Israel to Mesopotamia (near the Syria-Iraq border) in one day via
supernatural intervention. Yet we can do that trip today by plane
in a few hours and by car within a day. What was once a miracle is
now natural and everyday. And we have not even begun to discuss the
communication of human voices and images through radio, television,
telephones and the Internet.
Someone needs to write a special prayer thanking the Creator for
opening our eyes to the secrets that He planted in the world to be
discovered in our own era: the era of prophecy fulfilled, the epoch
of “a new heaven and a new earth”. The next time a light bulb
flickers or a tire goes flat, don’t sit there and cuss, but close
your eyes and reflect on the Fate that chose you to have these
wonderful things that all of our noble ancestors did not. Perhaps
then we will be spared the more violent reminders by the likes of
Zarqawi and his brothers, Katrina and her sisters, that electricity
and oil are ours by grace, not desert.
