Every human being on this planet born since 1945 is living under a cloud; a mushroom cloud.
Most all of us know what this cloud looks like. We have seen the pictures. Even the pictures are terrifying to see. Particularly the ones which record the atomic bomb drops at the end of World War II which fell on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. It is unimaginable to put ourselves in those places as ones who experienced and survived to tell the story of those mushroom clouds.
Since those detonations and the subsequent decades of tests of far more advanced nuclear and rocket technology, most all of the world’s people know what makes a mushroom cloud develop. We pray that we never actually see one. The sight would be the last thing most witnesses would see. Living under a real mushroom cloud is – in the famous phrase by novelist Tom Clancy – “the sum of all fears.”
The possibility of the detonation of a thermonuclear, a battlefield nuclear, or improvised, terrorist-deployed “dirty bomb” weapon is, to be sure, a fearsome cloud under which we all live. We all know that should there be a thermonuclear exchange or the detonation of even one of these mushroom-cloud-making devises of destruction and horror, life as we now know it would never be the same. Or perhaps even possible.
I have known two military men who witnessed the detonation of a thermonuclear bomb. They witnessed the hydrogen bomb test explosions in the pacific. They both independently and without hesitation described what they saw to me as “a vision of the end of the world.”
We live under the insane threat of mutual assured destruction which the sight of this human-made, mushroom cloud would portend. There is no escape from the fire, blast, radiation sickness that the mushroom cloud would bring. The consequence of the mushroom cloud would be a time warp throwing all impaired and temporary survivors back to the Stone Age.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the absolute insanity of Russia’s leader who threatens the possible use of such mushroom cloud-making weapons brings the terrifying image of the cloud under which we live, to top of the mind. The possibility of this cloud also brings with it enormous anxiety.
The unbridled, supreme, satanic arrogance of any person in power anywhere actually contemplating the unleashing of life-ending destruction of God’s creation for their deluded personal or twisted national gains is evidence that Satan is indeed, real and living among us. The fact that human beings surrounding such a leader and enabling the policy of mutual assured destruction to be carried out is evidence that satanic possession – disguised as rational policy of defense and homeland security – mortally infects the soul of far too many otherwise rational people.
Living under the threat of a mushroom cloud (for me a 73 year reality) begs the mind and soul for some personal method of thinking about and dealing with such a threat to all creation. The possibility of unleashed madness of destruction begs the question in the context of NOT BEING ABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT of how to live with it beyond of course, suffering the consequences. (Writing a letter of grave concern to our congressional representative is only another tangible sign of our total impotence).
BUT HERE IS A PERSONALLY POWERFUL THING THAT WE CAN DO!!!!!
We can meditate on, pray about, and be spiritually encouraged by affirming the great difference between the threatening cloud mankind has made and the cloud God makes. As persons of faith, let us get under THAT cloud; the cloud that God makes and the cloud encompassing God’s presence and promise.
Genesis 9:13 reveals that God sets God’s bow of promise in a cloud to assure us of God’s covenant of love and creation with us. We are children of this promise.
Exodus 14:19-20 reveals how God led an enslaved people to freedom by being in a cloudnight and day guiding people who did not know the way forward. God still does.
Exodus 19:9 describes God as being in a “dense cloud” and whose voice encourages. Exodus 19:16 describes God’s presence in a cloud covering the whole of Mount Sinai and out of which Moses receives the Torah; the foundation of purposeful life (Exodus 20:1-22).
God’s cloud goes on and on throughout the ancient texts that are the foundation of purposeful living and receiving God’s creation wonder. God’s cloud under which we all live is sung about in Psalms, proclaimed in Job, followed in Joshua, fills the temple in Isaiah and surrounds Jesus in holy wonder in the experience related in Matthew 17:1, Mark 9:2, and Luke 9:28.
Again, these are only SOME of the biblical places where God’s cloud is described and revealed as the cloud under which we all live. And if this were not enough, even in times of death and destruction – like a crucifixion, for instance – there is a cloud that surrounds us and ends in resurrection.
So, what is the cloud under which you will choose to live and under which I will choose to live no matter how difficult it may seem? Will we tremble, worry, and obsess about the human-made mushroom cloud or will we get under God’s cloud?
MUTUAL ASSURED DELIVERANCE (not destruction) is discovered there.