Dark Past
Darker Future?
Friday, August 11, 2023
Mendenhall Glacier on June 8, 2023, in Juneau, Alaska
Daniel 2:22
He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.
John 1:5
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
Words of Grace For Today
Scientists processed a ‘rediscovered in 2017’ ice and sediment core taken in 1996 below Camp Century in Greenland, in the dark under 4500 feet of ice. Studying that past they determined that 416,000 years ago plants thrived there. While scientists used to think that the ice pack over Greenland had been there for millions of years, meaning it was quite resilient to changes in temperature, this means that the ice pack is comparatively sensitive to increases in temperatures, and
Much more quickly than we thought, with climate change and rising temperatures, the whole ice pack will melt. All that ice gone means the temperatures there will rise as the sun’s heat is absorbed into the ground instead of reflected back by the white ice-snow. It also means that the oceans will quickly rise as much as 23 feet just from Greenland’s ice water being added to the oceans. Greenland will be warm and wet, and the entire earth may be ice-free.
Billions of people live near sea level: large cities like New York and Vancouver’s lower mainland, large areas like Florida, most of the Netherlands and sub-continent India and large areas of Africa.
So out of the darkness comes the light that shows that the future is very dark for billions of people, and by extension for us all.
Enjoy the light while we can, right?
Or
Do something to prepare, except our possible preparations are small (and smaller yet are the preparations we will likely engage in) compared to what lies ahead.
It’s like building a bomb shelter in one’s back yard and stocking it for a few month’s habitation. That was not needed, fortunately. But such preparations would have been wholly inadequate!
Or
Allow ourselves to both do all that is possible, assist others, and pray for sanity among all people. It’s going to get hard.
And when it gets hard some people turn to violence, as if nature’s onslaught will not be enough.
Then the peacemakers will be needed to keep at least a few people sane, able to make a future worth living
for generations to come.
Pray that we will not forget how to dance, laugh, and sing, amid the darknesses to come.
Pray that the Light of Christ will live in and among us.
Pray that the Holy Spirit will teach us now and always to live in that Light, amid the darknesses we know all too well.