To most human beings, wind is an irritation. To most trees, wind is a song.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
How does one navigate through the smoke, the fog, the mist?
What do you do if you can’t see your own hand in front of your face?
What are you meant to do while you wait for the smoke to clear?
The thing about the seasons of secondhand wildfire smoke that veil our region every year is that they do eventually end. The weather turns. The wind blows through, bringing the song back to the trees. It may be a few days or a few weeks, but the blue sky returns and the sun’s red mask lifts. Eventually. All we have to do is wait.
But the waiting is the tough part, isn’t it? That’s where we feel most alone, most lost, most turned around even in the most familiar landscape.
Where did everyone go? Why does home feel warped, strange?
When we’re engulfed in smoke, it is tempting to think that what we need is clarity. Direction. A way through, a roadmap. But in reality, what we desperately need is trust.
Trust in what?
In wildfire season, we trust that the season will eventually end. That the rain and the wind will return like the Spirit and scour out the gloom. We know that the wheel turns, that the year will cool and soften, and that the wildfires will not survive the cold.
But in the smoky seasons of our lives, we trust in Who God Is as displayed by His character: in the “little book” of Scripture, and in the “big book” of Creation (see this post for more on this concept). This Good God, this God of the Blue Sky and God of the Bright Unmasked Sun will always extend His hand through the darkness and lead us through. This is what He does. This is what He has always done.
When we trust in Who God Is, we are trusting in the promise that everything in Creation sings from its being. It is the nature of nature to sing the song God placed in it before time was time. No smoke can silence it. It can only muffle it for a while.
And alone? That’s how we feel when the season is smokiest. Where did everyone else go? How am I the only one left?
My friends, here is the secret: God never left you. Not in the smoke, not in the flame, and never in the gloom. He sings beside you every step of your life, every moment. The haze can only muffle Him, but it cannot silence Him.
Believe the song the trees sing when the wind passes through their tops. Believe the blue sky, the unmasked sun. Believe the rain which falls like the Spirit upon our most destructive wildfires.
Every one of them is a gospel of the God who stays, singing, until the smoke clears.
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This is some of your best work I've seen yet--and that's even allowing for the high bar set by everything else you've written. Well said, and thank you for this timely reminder!