August 22, 2022 – Millarville, Alberta
“Listen to the thunder. That is God, rolling out the barrels to dump rain on our crops”. – Grandpa Billie
It is late evening; a magnificent thunderstorm is brewing in the west. Flashes of distant lightning illuminate clouds forming over the mountains. Suppressed thunder grumbles in the distance. There appear to be electric serpents and agitated beasts embedded in the dark clouds, straining to be unleashed.
Mosquitoes are taking advantage of the lull; they look for cracks in the armour, eager to rip craters from my ankles, but I am not moving. I know what’s coming and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
The clouds have moved closer. The entire field of vision to the south, the west, and upward is growing ominously dark. An occasional frigid gust escapes the nostrils of the trapped beasts.
Thunderstorms were so frightening and mysterious the ancients attributed them to gods. The Greeks believed that the blacksmith god, Hephaestus, created lightening to help Grecian armies defeat their enemies.
Some American Indigenous tribes associated thunderstorms with the Thunderbird, an entity they relied upon for strength and power.
Our Norse ancestors believed that thunder and lightning were the effects of blows from Thor’s hammer.
Hinduism recognizes Indra as the god of rain and thunderstorms.
Indra on the left, is depicted riding an elephant, carrying a sword and a thunderbolt in each of His two right hands.
The eye of the storm has moved directly over the house now, the power is unfathomable. Lightening is constant, thunder deafening, the wind is furious. Rain lashes in torrents, drenching everything in its path. The day’s heat is gone, replaced by an icy breath.
Christian doctrine asserts that storms are the work of God, who uses thunder and lightning to both punish and reward his followers.
Job 37-13
He brings the clouds to punish people, or to water his earth and show his love.
As I retreat to the safety of the house, I think of the ancients, in tents and caves, and earthen mounds. Exposed to the elements and devoid of scientific understanding of what was transpiring in the heavens, it is not difficult to imagine that the ancestors would attribute the majesty and terror of a thunderstorm to Gods. How else to explain such fury?
Gods created to explain thunderstorms vary from one tribe to the next, but the invented deities often assume the characteristics of the people who conjure them. Warring people divine warlike gods. Agrarian tribes create gods with nurturing tendencies, and nomadic people adopt gods who travel.
Once created and universally accepted by the tribe, followers bow to their conjured spirits and pray for benevolence.
People create gods, then ask their chosen divinity to spare them from the wrath of the storms that inspired them.
The sky is alternately dark as coal, then blinding sheets of lightening illuminate every corner. The glasses in the cupboard rattle every time a thunderclap follows the light. Rain cascades from the roof in sheets.
If I didn’t understand the science behind what is happening over my roof right now, I might be inclined to put a “God” label on it. If I didn’t understand convective currents, adiabatic cooling, and the relative speed at which sound and light travel, I might be inclined to think that the wrath of some deity is upon us. If I didn’t know better, I would get down on my knees and pray to the god in charge of this storm; I would ask Him to send any hail He has in mind elsewhere.
Throughout time, in every part of the world, mankind has related the power and mystery of thunderstorms to their version of God. My Grandfather associated thunder with life-giving rain on a parched Saskatchewan farm. My warring Viking ancestors connected thunder and lightening to instruments of battle. The Christian god, who commands his subjects to both love and fear him simultaneously, uses the power of storms to punish and reward.
Furgus the cat thinks the world is coming to an end, Bear won’t come out of her lair, and in my mind, I am already repairing the roof.
The question is, was it God who created the thunderstorm we just witnessed, or did storms like this…
…Create God?
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