30 Years since Mt. St. Helens!
Posted by Chaplain Campbell. Filed in Active Duty, Announcement, Chaplains, Families, Information, Life Lessons, National Guard, News, Reserves, Spouses, Stories, Uncategorized, Veterans, Wounded Warriors |
For those of us old enough to remember, it may be hard to believe that Mt. St. Helens erupted 30 years ago today, May 18, 1980!
I remember it well, being only about 50 miles from the mountain, the “Perfect Snow cone,” when it blew. We didn’t even know it had happened until we saw some funny looking dark grey clouds rising quickly that Sunday morning. But what a change it made!
57 people died that day as a result of the eruption. Rivers flooded. Mountainsides became giant mudslides. Miles of pristine forest later resembled spilled toothpicks on mudflats. New words entered our Northwest vocabulary, such as “pyroclastic flow.”
For many of us the aftermath was the worst. The ash cloud that rose to 80,000 feet wandered many states away, leaving a grey/brown ash the consistency of talcum powder. Passing cars would send up a 30 foot plume of ash. But the worst is that it got in everything: your car’s air filter, your clothing, your hair (I had a lot more back then!), even your food. It was a mess that took time to clean up. How well I remember those final weeks before I graduated from seminary with all that ash!
“Eruptions” occur in our lives as well. Divorce. Death. Deployment. Illness. Loss of employment. Passover for promotion. The list could go on endlessly. But just as the Mt. St. Helens area, once resembling a nuclear detonation site, has reestablished with green grass, wild flowers, trees, and birds, so our lives can heal. Things aren’t always the same, just as the “perfect snow cone” no longer holds that shape; but there is new life.
If you have experienced an “eruption” in life, remember that new life follows. Scientists tell us that seeds of dormant plant life actually came to fruition following that terrible eruption in May 1980 in Washington State. And similar blessings in our lives can occur following a life “eruption.” For instance, the biblical Joseph, sold into slavery, unjustly accused, jailed, and forgotten, later interprets the Pharaoh’s dream and is elevated to second-in-command of Egypt. There he is uniquely situated to provide food for his starving countrymen from Canaan, preserving a nation.
The ugliness and severity of a volcano, or a life-challenging event, can facilitate new life. Just take a look.at Mt. St. Helens.
(Click on: www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/slideshow.mount.st.helens/index.html?hpt=Mid, to see for yourself).
