“The
tornadoes that have been devastating parts of the South and Midwest, just weeks
after a deadly mudslide in Washington, demonstrate once again the unimaginable
power of nature.
After
each disaster, we grieve over the human lives lost, the innocent people drowned
or crushed without warning as they slept in their beds, worked in their fields
or sat at their office desks…. Beyond the grieving and anger is a more subtle
emotion. We feel betrayed. We feel betrayed by nature….How could Mother Nature
do this to us, her children? Yet despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness
with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn’t care one whit about
us.” —Alan Lightman, “Our Lonely Home in Nature,” The New York Times, May
3, 2014
The
article in which this quote originally appeared came out two months ago.
Unfortunately, this week’s news about tornadoes and flooding in the Midwest
shows that the piece remains all too current—and it’s likely to continue to be
for awhile yet.
(The image accompanying this post shows a tornado near Minco, Oklahoma.)
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