Jackson Free Press

I love thunderstorms. From the safety of a covered porch, a nighttime thunderstorm can be a truly awe-inspiring natural light-and-sound show on par with the best July 4 fireworks. Just watching those jagged stabs of light streaking across a dark sky can produce visceral reactions: They can make me gasp suddenly or force me to say completely dumb and unbidden things like "whoa!" The air itself ducks for cover in the rushes of wind that accompany thunderstorms.

In the dead of night, you might hear me cussing those storms. Awesome or not, 3 a.m. is no time to wake me with loud noises and flashes of light. My girl-kitty, Tallulah, agrees whole-heartedly. Thunderstorms send her with alacrity to places where I will never find her, and I've tried.

Nature, taken as is, is always humbling in the best sense of the word, having the ability to leave us mere humans dumbstruck in the face of her beauty and power. Whether it's a multi-colored sunset or a baby's first breath, an icicle breaking light into a rainbow or the red claw of death, mere humans simply cannot come close to replicating what the natural world does with ease.

Awesome, though, doesn't cancel out devastating. Just within the last several weeks, Mississippi and her neighbors have dealt with a rash of wreckage and death left in the wake of lethal tornadoes. Combine nature's killer side with our predilection for controlling our environment, and you get even more "interesting" events. Last summer's oil catastrophe in the Gulf is one example. Another is Japan's ongoing struggle to control the radiation leaks from its damaged Fukishima plant after the one-two punch of an earthquake and tsunami.

After a devastating natural event, mere acceptance is way, way down on the list of our reactions. After an initial surge of fear or sorrow, catastrophic events tend to temper our will to fight. We're in a hurry, after all, to clean up and get on with our lives. We'll rebuild stronger. We'll figure it out so it doesn't happen again. We'll dredge the river and buttress the walls. We will be back.

But as the Yiddish saying goes: "Men plan; God laughs."

We set ourselves up when we do battle with the natural world. It seems every time humans try to outwit nature, we come out with the proverbial short end of the stick. The clouds don't care that you picked the least likely day of the year for rain to celebrate outdoors. Tornadoes don't check to see if we have insurance. And the Mississippi River doesn't care about our paltry little levees, though for now, they're holding most of the river back.

It is ironic that all that rich black Mississippi Delta soil—some of the best soil for growing things on the planet—has to be under water every so often. When it is, the water destroys crops and farms and the lives and homes of people who live there. It's ironic that California sunshine comes with the San Andreas Fault, too, but that doesn't stop Californians from living in Los Angeles or San Francisco.

Our Delta derives its richness from the occasional Mississippi River flood (hence "alluvial") leaving its nutrient-rich deposits. And as much as we try to control the river with our grandiose schemes to re-route it or build levees to guard against it, the river always wins in the end. To me, the most surprising thing about Mississippi River floods is that they surprise us.

Maybe it's more resigned than surprised. Snaking through some 2,300 miles of the United States from Lake Itasca, Minn., to 95 miles south of New Orleans, the river neatly cuts the country in two. It touches 10 of our 50 states, or 31 states if you count its major tributaries, the Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Red rivers. It's the fourth longest river in the world. It is a natural wonder.

Mississippians knew this flood was coming. The Mississippi is nothing if not slow (in a relative kind of way), never flowing faster than about 3 mph. The National Weather Service has been talking about the flooding since January due to heavy snow in the Midwest. It has taken months for the snowmelt to merge with the ordinary heavy spring rains to bring record flood crests to our shores—months of watching and waiting, because, really, we could do little else. Nature tends to work that way. Try to stop the rain if you're not clear about that, or the coming heat of summer.

And now, we'll watch and wait until the river decides to recede from our homes and farms. With any luck, we got out what we needed to get back in, clean up and rebuild. Some folks already know they're not that lucky. This time, the river has taken what she wanted from them, and she won't be giving it back.

My mother told the story of an ancestor whose house was struck by lightening back in the days when that was still common. The woman, a great-great-great-great aunt I think, lived in the country. This being mountainous terrain, it wasn't unusual for people to house their animals below the house facing west with the house on top, facing east (or maybe it was north and south). This particular lightening strike killed the animals in the barn, ripped the woman's shoes off and burned her feet. She never walked again, I was told. I bet she didn't love thunderstorms.

If you're into contests, attempting to defy and control nature is a fool's game. Nature always wins in the end and invading our cozy homes, our refuges, is standard fare. Ultimately, all of us succumb to nature whether we like it or not. That tends to scare us silly regardless of the fact that none of us will escape.

In our more primitive traditions, the sheer majesty of nature evoked fear, gratitude and reverence. Fear for what she could take away; gratitude for what she provided; reverence for all that and everything else. It's not difficult to understand when you look at rooftops and treetops dotting what could be lakes but were actually farms a month ago. Imagine life without the NWS telling us what's probably coming tomorrow.

My heart goes out to the people dealing with nature's latest caprice. In the bigger scheme of things, this flood will fade from memory like the flood of 1927. A hundred years from now, who knows what form this footnote will take.

Lots of folks would like to think that we can tame nature or fool her or continue to befoul her without consequence. I am not convinced. If nothing else, I think I'll treat her a little better than before. You know; show her some reverence.

Previous Comments

ID

163762

Comment

Ronni didn't the Lord give man dominion and control over the fowls, animals, waters and lands. Oh yeah and of the (wo)man, our helpmate made from one of our ribs. We soon let the woman get control, ate the forbidden apple, she put on clothes and the rest is history. I know I'm suppose to be crazy, but if we gave too much reverence to nature or the river in this instance, wouldn't nature or the river just like the woman soon did be running things or telling us what to do? Very thought provoking column, Ronni, but we men folks just can't relinquish control again in light of plain instructions from above and how things turns out the last time we disobeyed instructions in the Garden of Eden. Nature is just gonna have to obey. We're not making the same mistake again. I like watching the rain too from inside the house separated by thick glass and minus the thunder and lightening. My heart goes out too to all the people suffering as a result of storms. floods, etc..

Author

Walt

Date

2011-06-06T17:49:45-06:00