Whose House

The human tragedy in Japan continues to unfold and we continue to search for the lessons that lie buried for us amid its ruins.

Among all the teachings that will rise from the rubble, one rings out: we can no longer pretend that we hold nature by the tail, that we have tamed her and wrestled her and can ride her as we please.

We can no longer imagine that nature is a discretionary element in our lives, that it lies docile by the door, waiting demurely, even servilely, til we let her in.

Nature will not wait quietly out there while we root around in her cellar, raid her pantry and toss back the refuse when we are done.

Nature remains a force all its own. The awesome might of nature wielded by God as drawn for us in the last chapters of Job still reigns.

For a while, during our heady, easy, energy-besotted 20th century, we thought we had tamed the beast. At least enough.

We acted as if we were the hosts and nature the guest. Sometimes we welcomed nature into our home and sometimes not; sometimes she was well-mannered and sometimes not.

But we are reminded with all that is happening, the storms and the rain, the flooding and the earthquakes, the droughts and blizzards, that nature is not out there, beyond our doors and the boundaries of our cities.

Nature is in here. Or no, not even that.

We have confused who is in whose house.

It is not nature who is in ours, but we who are in nature's.

We must mind the rules of our host, if we wish for things to go well.

While we will never rid the world of nature's ravages, at least we can know that we have anticipated them better, have not added to their frequency or ferocity, or been the cause of collateral tragedies.