Confining Our Remarks to the Weather

I had to listen to Jeremiah 4-6 twice this morning because I wasn't really awake the first time. Lest any of you consider me a true Bible Reader, just because I give these little updates about where I am as I carry on, let me just describe what sort of Bible Reader I really am, in contrast to what I Ought To Be. I've gone through the whole thing several times in my life–maybe once in high school, not all the way through in college, gave up reading it in seminary because, well, that's another post, got through it again in the first five or so years of marriage, and then Finally, the ESV people got a good person to read it out loud and put it on the internet (which always makes me think of that wonderful joke of the stutterer who becomes a bible salesman and has such extraordinary sales that no one can believe it but then the punch line is, and I can't say it with a proper stutter or type it, “do you want to buy a bible, or do you want me to read it to you?”, apologies to all who stutter) which has therefore allowed me to go through the whole thing every year for the last four or five. And my favorite way, which nevertheless Matt disapproves of, is to do it chronologically, so that the reading goes not necessarily when each thing was written, but the order in which it occurred. This is particularly wonderful with the psalms and prophets so that you get the psalms when they were, roughly, written, and you read the prophets right along with the historical accounts of the kings of Israel and Judah. Later, when I get to Acts, Paul's letters will be spliced in so I will have a better sense of what was going on for him when he was writing them.

Now, as to the manner of my Reading/Listening. What I Ought to do is read and listen at the same time. Matt points this out to me in his usual way of also mentioning every few minutes that I should learn Greek. Mmhmmm, I always say, sure. What I Actually do is wake up at five am, and in a very tired and bleary way, pop open the internet and push play and then close my eyes and sleep through the day's allotment. Then I snap awake, when it's nearly over and I either go forward to the next day, or just push play again. This time I pour a mug of tea and play majong while I listen. I'd say I really properly hear about 60% because a lot of the time I'm remembering the things I want to do or a child comes and ruins it or I lose at majong or any of the hundred or so other ways my mind slips sideways. If I really manage to hear it and pay attention, often I'll click forward for a third day. But mostly I'll just shut it and try to think of something to blog about.

So today, Jeremiah, who is so sad, and who, in the early morning, sounds like he's repeating himself a great deal, and, it occurred to me, had to go on talking so long, which is why everyone hated him so, did seem to go on about the weather. God, he says, gave you lush gardens and good harvests and lovely weather (my paraphrase) and you didn't thank him or worship him but found stupid little objects to pour your trust and devotion into. So then he sent terrible weather–drought and so forth and locusts–but you didn't repent and turn to him. In both cases, God was expecting, through the weather, to have clearly communicated with his creatures. In good weather he was saying 'I love you'. In bad weather he was saying, 'you are terribly evil and should repent'.

This suggests to me a couple of strange comforts. First, God is in charge of the weather. However much we try to pretend that this isn't the case, there is always a sort of squirmy fist shaking at heaven when bad weather happens. Whatever anyone says out loud about it, fundamentally, we know that bad weather is essentially God's fault because we know he could have stopped it and didn't. Repenting of our sins, whatever they may be, should be instinctual when catastrophe strikes. Did a tower fall? Repent. Next time it could fall on you. Has there been a big storm and some perished? Repent. Not because you caused it, but because God has had mercy on you by you not perishing this time.

The second strange comfort is that my flowers will continue to grow.

Because God is in charge of the weather, I didn't grow my own flowers. I plant, I fuss, I water, I accidentally destroy, but I don't make the seeds actually sprout and come forth in life. God does. Though the earth be brought low, The Lord remains. If he wants us to continue, we will. The ordinary-ness of grass pushing up through the dirt, of flowers unfurling, of oregano spreading itself all over every available patch of ground ought to remind us that God is the orderer of all our ways. We don't have nearly the control we think we do and we should try to act and pray as if this were so.

Of course we don't. We don't worship God and give thanks as we should. But then bad weather is given as a prompt to repentence. But then we don't do that either. Which is why Jeremiah wept and repeated himself so often. And why God had to come himself and show his disciples clearly that he does, in fact, control the weather. The winds and the waves obey him. How much more should you and I.

And on that note, I will go pull up a ghastly weed I can see from where I'm sitting, and fling a horrible slug over the hedge. Have a lovely day!