Nature, Red In Tooth and Claw

The phrase above is from Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” (19th century poem) after his good friend Hallam died at the age of 22 of brain hemorrhage. This phrase seems pertinent now as I ponder how diseases work. (Btw Tennyson also used the phrase “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” in this poem.)

Personally I’m not particularly afraid of the coronavirus for myself because I live with the specter of death all the time. (Plus I am a product of privilege, so compared to lots of ppl, I have many many advantages over others.) However I’m afraid for all those who will die in this plague and leave behind loved ones. I’m also afraid for how the already economically disadvantaged will suffer because of lack of wages and afraid for those homeless and/or alone. The uninsured. I pray for those.

I just got a phone call from nameless person who was ranting about how this is God’s way of calling lots of ppl to him. (She had been reading Revelation and about pestilence that was to come from China? How did she know that from that text?) I let her go on, but I said “ I don’t believe that. Like I don’t believe my cancer is a punishment, or AIDs was a punishment.” She said “it’s not punishment—it’s God’s way of calling ppl to him.” I said, “yeah but lots of ppl will die and it will happen even to those who are faithful to God.” I should have mentioned how Jesus called ppl to him through his love Or 1 John in which author says God is love and perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:7; 1 John 4:18).

Sheesh. I don’t pretend to know how it all works, but I don’t believe in a God of punishment.

What I do know as a verifiable fact is that our bodies are susceptible to disease, aging, physics, gunshot wounds, and all that. All of us. And so I’m doing all I can to keep my social distance and follow guidelines so others don’t get sick.

I’ve also been thinking about the poem “Design” by Robert Frost. I’ll post below. As Tennyson noted, nature is not always beautiful and kind. It’s often brutal. When I gave up asking God “Why me?” ages ago, I began to breathe a sigh of relief. A better question is “Why not me?”

Here’s Frost’s poem. For those of you who hate parsing poetry, it’s about a white spider that alights on a white flower called the heal-all (ironic). The white spider then traps a moth that is attracted by the white color. The last lines ask the important questions.

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.