The Unplanned (Doug Wiens)
Jewish prisoners bow to the Assyrian king, as they are taken into captivity. Wall relief from a palace in Nineveh, 701 BCE. (British Museum) (courtesy of Osama Amin via creative commons license)
I’m the sort of person who likes to plan for the future and think about various new research projects to begin, courses to teach, travels to take, and family members to visit. My mind contains a little topographic map of what the next months and years should look like, reassuring me that interesting events will take place, challenges will be met, and friendships continued. COVID exploded my confidence about the future, along with my sense of independence and self-importance. It feels strange to live in limbo, with professional plans, vacations, visits to family members, and even my own continued health all highly uncertain.
Since some of my research touches on disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, I had an academic understanding of the unpredictability and dangers of the natural world. I spent days in Christchurch, New Zealand after the devastating earthquake there in 2011, feeling the shaking of aftershocks and talking to individuals about their lost houses, jobs, and lifestyles. I visited Lake Monoun in Cameroon, and heard local people tell their stories about the terrible night that gasses from the volcanic lake silently killed dozens of men, women, and children. I recall visiting Northeast Japan a couple years after the devastating 2011 tsunami, and haunting conversations with a leading seismologist, who feels a sense of responsibility and guilt about underestimating the potential size of the earthquake. Yet academic knowledge and observations about remote disasters did not prepare me for the feelings of uncertainty in my own life, caused by the spread of the virus and its effect on our society.
COVID has helped me realize that the feelings of predictability and stability are illusions not shared by most people throughout history, or even most individuals in the world today. Living in a privileged strata of U.S. society in this time period, combined with perhaps a bit of good luck and good fortune, shielded me from the realities of normal human existence. I did not even have to cope with the Dustbowl, the Great Depression, World War II, and the polio epidemic as my parents did during their formative years. Though America has been at war almost ceaselessly, the reality of war, disease, and disaster were always remote tragedies for me that happened in places like Cambodia, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and West Africa. However, even a cursory survey of history reveals that plague, famine, and war have been regular parts of the human experience. Whole societies and civilizations have disappeared, leaving only memories and artifacts behind. Are we so special and advanced as to be exempt from the lessons of history?
So how can we deal with a frightening and unknown future? Fortunately, we can look for guidance to writers and prophets who have wrestled with this problem for millennia. They faced the uncertain future with faith in God, and with a mindfulness that comes from focusing on and being thankful for the present.
The Hebrew prophets, like many today, lived in a time of tremendous instability, with the Assyrian army brutally devastating the smaller nations and forcibly resettling their people in other parts of the empire. In the face of this devastating threat, Isaiah says, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” (Is 12:2, NIV) Hundreds of years later, Jesus spoke to people living under occupation, who were only forty years away from annihilation at the hands of the Roman empire. He said, “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble for its own.” (Matt 6:34; NIV).
I must admit some disappointment at the loss of that confident future mapped out in my head, but I am trying to work on living thankfully and faithfully day by day. I am safely holed up at home, teaching my class and working with students remotely, not even remembering that I was planning to be in Europe now. For the first time since childhood, I have been able to observe the miracle of days getting longer, trees blossoming, and new bird species singing as they return from winter migrations to begin mating and nesting. This week I enjoyed long walks with my wife as we reconnect and explore a neighborhood we had not noticed before. The unplanned joys can sometimes be the most profound.
Doug Wiens is a Carver Project faculty fellow and the Robert S. Brookings Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Further Reading:
Matthew 5-7
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