“It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.” —Calvin Coolidge

Outside, the hurricane’s force is uprooting trees and tossing around lawn furniture. I am a child, huddled inside the boarded-up house with my family. The electricity has long since gone out, so we burn kerosene lamps in the middle of the day to light the shuttered dark. Without a window open, the temperature rises to 100^o F and beyond. The porous sack of skin around my body exchanges fluids with the humid air.

That was many years ago. Today, hurricanes may be increasing in number and intensity due to global warming. Each year hurricane, flood, drought, earthquake, volcanic eruption, or other calamities, once called acts of God, force millions of people from their homelands on a refugee trek that may last the rest of their lives. Such catastrophes often stem from human activities such as damming rivers, clearing forests, building roads, over-extracting groundwater, or building unsafely in hazardous zones. More people are now forced to leave their homes because of environmental disaster than because of war. Most of today’s refugee problem results from our preoccupation with outward growth that results in an inability to live with Nature.

With careful thought and wisdom, authentic prayer and worship, we can grow as human beings and learn to live respectfully with Nature. Our planet commands a force so powerful that a hurricane merely spins like a child’s pool toy in the face of it. Nature can right many wrongs, if we only give it a chance.