Looking Anxiety in the Face by Brokering Herbert

Author:Brokering, Herbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fortress Press

15

Anxiety

Weather

We plow the fields and scatter

The good seed on the land,

But it is fed and watered

By God’s almighty hand.

He sends the snow in winter,

The warmth to swell the grain,

The breezes and the sunshine,

And soft refreshing rain.17

In our country church schoolhouse we sang this song—Wir Pfluegen und Wir Streuen (We Plow the Fields and Scatter)—in two languages, over and over through the years. There was no weatherman on WCCO, Omaha; there was God.

Is it you God, or the weatherman? Or both?

I was raised to believe God did the weather. Psalm 104 was too long for me then, but this is what we believed in our home and world.

Bless the LORD, O my soul.

O LORD my God, you are very great.

You are clothed with honor and majesty,

wrapped in light as with a garment.

You stretch out the heavens like a tent,

you set the beams of your chambers on the waters,

you make the clouds your chariot,

you ride on the wings of the wind,

you make the winds your messengers,

fire and flame your ministers.

You set the earth on its foundations,

so that it shall never be shaken (Psalms 104:1–5).

Weather was a worry when I was little. Farmers had neither irrigation nor crop insurance. For months during worship, father pled in prayer for right weather. Work and bread and butter depended on good weather. I watched the faces of farm families while father prayed. They seemed hopeful, trusting, less anxious than I.

I was sad when insects stripped the cornstalks and ate heads of farmers’ grain. I worried that rust would spoil a good wheat crop. I felt God sent a plague when hail crushed good grain to the ground. Though far from Egypt, I argued with God about weather and justice. God was the only weatherman I knew.

We watched the sky and wind and clouds for any sign of the weather we needed, prayed for, and expected. More and more I expected the good weather father prayed for. Even though he prayed “Your will be done,” I knew what my will was.

We did not know what the weather reports now tell in detail. We did not understand weather patterns and systems and fronts. Weather was about God and prayer and how we lived our lives. Bad weather could make me feel like a bad person. A farmer spared of hail was special and blessed. If our garden was destroyed, there was a lesson to be learned, but I did not know what that meant.

So I learned to feel some responsibility and control in matters of weather. Weather was a spiritual affair and a matter of prayer. I often find myself drawn between God and the weatherman in matters of storms, floods, tornadoes, and crop failure.

Weather can create anxiety. I can easily feel these concerns: What if it rains during the parade? What if there’s a blizzard on Christmas Eve? What if our picnic is rained out? What if it’s too hot for the walk? What if it hails on the crops? What if the levees break?

Once there was a weatherman who was religious.

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