Russellings of the Spirit

One of my favorite apps to pull up on my phone is an app called “Storm Shield.”

It is a weather radar app that allows me to see CURRENT weather radar as well as a view of what the weather radar will look like in the FUTURE.

I enjoy opening this app periodically so I can look at what is going on in the world, meteorologically. I feel like a genuine weatherman as I peer at my phone and make uneducated guesses about where that big ol’ patch of thunderstorms will be heading next.

And let’s face it… who doesn’t love getting a little peek into the future? Even if it is just the next few hours of weather?

But as fond as I am of this app, I must take its developers to task here a little: despite its reassuring name, not ONCE has this app ever actually shielded me from a storm. Winds have tousled my hair and rain has fallen on me JUST LIKE IT DID before I bought it!

Besides being a fan of the FUTURE feature of the app, I also love having the ability to shrink or widen the perspective. I can look either at this view:

Or THIS one:

… or even wider if I so desire.

I’m not going to lie; all this power – including the ability to peer into the future – makes me feel a bit like The Great and Powerful Oz!

I think the urge to “look beyond” ourselves and see an enlarged picture of our world is a fairly basic human tendency.

I mean, who knows? Maybe it is exactly this “looking beyond” urge that supplies the energy for space exploration, and undersea voyages, and archeological digs.

It is certainly the reason we will likely never face a shortage of movies on the subject of time travel.

Yes… we all want to “see beyond” our present moment and setting, but it seems we really only want that vision if it fits in with the way we see the world right now.

In this age of relativism and inflated self-importance, we really don’t want to be bothered to consider a cosmic point of view that might dare to challenge our seat on the Throne of Power of our lives.

I make this statement because of the research that shows an ever-accelerating rise in the number of people who reject any notion of God or Ultimate Reality or a Higher Power, preferring instead to operate by the seat of their own, omnipotent pants.

They do have a point. This is, after all, the God who said (through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah):

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”–       Isaiah 55:8-9, NRSV

This is probably not the God from whom you would ever hear a phrase like, “Yeah, OK… whatever you think. That’s cool.”

This Advent season we have just embarked on is a time to be reminded of our utter subordinacy as humans. It is a time when God said, “I know you are impatient for a solution to the web of ills that surround you, but rest assured; I’ve got this.”

And then – at Christmas – we saw that God did INDEED have it!

So thanks anyway, but I think I will just be content to rely on my Storm Shield app for my “far and wide” glimpses of reality.

And I’ll try to be a little more prepared the next time that green blob starts moving in my direction.

Abundant blessings;