Pratt: God has a great sense of humor as well as compassion

Awakening in the early-morning hours to the sound of a storm, I arose first to look out the window and see pea-sized hail peppering the patio.

What a relief when after maybe five or 10 minutes the icy pebbles were replaced with rain accompanied by stiff winds out of the northeast. I’m up, turning on lights, looking out windows.

At noon on Monday, we looked through dark lenses as the eclipse progressed and later Tuesday morning, I listened as television newscasters from various parts of the country reported on the viewer experiences.

“What,” I wondered, "would our world be like if we were more attuned to the biblical story of the world we inhabit?”

It is no mystery about why humans first gazed with wonder at the heavens above -- the moon, the stars --  and counted our days by their appearance as night and day even as we also celebrated the warmth of the sun by day.

Isn’t it interesting that the questions we have are still the most basic and important in all the history of humankind: “What are we? Who are we? When did life as we know it begin? What is our purpose?”

Answers to these questions are numerous and diverse. Some believe we are simply an accident of nature but cannot really define what that means other than the struggle to survive on a planet that seems designed to be both friend and foe.

Evidence of change in the planet is clearly a heavy question today, although we tend to give ourselves more credit for causation than we can prove. But we have come a long way in understanding that our actions have consequences whether as the human family or as the inhabitants of a world that seems tailored to sustain life in an amazing number of different species and geographics.

The scientists among us continue their work to find answers. The philosophers among us develop varieties of wisdom and those of us who look to God as Creator of the Universe and beyond, ponder the meaning of life and our role as human beings “made in the image of God,” as the biblical story of Creation describes the brevity and purpose of a human lifetime on Earth, but promises us a choice as to where we spend Eternity.

I find that the older I get, the more certain I become that humanity is the essence of a struggle between good and evil that is beyond our capacity to fully comprehend. Therefore, faith in God’s purpose and joy in the journey is the great gift humanity holds above all other created beings.

Patterns of behaviors emerge in every people group – some good, some evil. We are given the privilege of choosing whom to follow, but we do not have the capacity to dictate that choice to any other human being. It is personal, it is life-changing choice and to the extent we choose good over evil, we thrive spiritually.

That does not mean we are perfect. We do suffer not only the consequences of our errors, but we are also targets for those who choose the way of destruction. Answers to our biggest questions will come only in Eternity. But the choice as to where we spend Eternity is made in the here and now once we are of an age and condition to make such a decision.

If our ultimate goal is to achieve perfection in this life, we will never find peace because we are not perfect in our human weakness. Therein lies the essence of the “Why?” of the crucifixion of one who took on our human form. Jesus lived in godly perfection, going through the pain of the Crucifixion as a symbol of the more terrible suffering of defeating Evil at its very roots.

That is what Christians celebrate at Easter, most recently on March 31 in Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Protestant churches this year. The variable date in churches has something to do with where the moon goes. And this year, the moon was dancing with the sun, a somewhat unusual occurrence.

In the book of Genesis, God creates the Earth and its atmospheric heavens, and just maybe, he did it with a bit of humor, allowing the creation of the masterful sun to ever so often briefly be upstaged by the moon somewhere on the planet at certain intervals.

God has a great sense of humor as well as compassion or he would not have created humans. What a destructive mess we tend to make of our God-given privilege of life. Evil has no humor, only hatred.

Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: God has a great sense of humor as well as compassion