storms

63:2.2And it was in this new home among the tree­tops, one night af­ter they had been awak­ened by a vi­o­lent storm, and as they held each other in fear­ful and fond em­brace, that they fi­nally and fully made up their minds to flee from the tribal habi­tat and the home tree­tops.

49:3.3Mil­lions upon mil­lions of me­te­orites en­ter the at­mo­sphere of Uran­tia daily, com­ing in at the rate of al­most two hun­dred miles a sec­ond. On the non­breath­ing worlds the ad­vanced races must do much to pro­tect them­selves from me­teor dam­age by mak­ing elec­tri­cal in­stal­la­tions which op­er­ate to con­sume or shunt the me­te­ors. Great dan­ger con­fronts them when they ven­ture be­yond these pro­tected zones. These worlds are also sub­ject to dis­as­trous elec­tri­cal storms of a na­ture un­known on Uran­tia. Dur­ing such times of tremen­dous en­ergy fluc­tu­a­tion the in­hab­i­tants must take refuge in their spe­cial struc­tures of pro­tec­tive in­su­la­tion.

57:8.11This en­tire age was char­ac­ter­ized by fre­quent and vi­o­lent storms. The early crust of the earth was in a state of con­tin­ual flux. Sur­face cool­ing al­ter­nated with im­mense lava flows. Nowhere can there be found on the sur­face of the world any­thing of this orig­i­nal plan­e­tary crust. It has all been mixed up too many times with ex­trud­ing lavas of deep ori­gins and ad­mixed with sub­se­quent de­posits of the early world-wide ocean.

123:4.5The only real ac­ci­dent Je­sus had up to this time was a fall down the back-yard stone stairs which led up to the can­vas-roofed bed­room. It hap­pened dur­ing an un­ex­pected July sand­storm from the east. The hot winds, car­ry­ing blasts of fine sand, usu­ally blew dur­ing the rainy sea­son, es­pe­cially in March and April. It was ex­traor­di­nary to have such a storm in July. When the storm came up, Je­sus was on the house­top play­ing, as was his habit, for dur­ing much of the dry sea­son this was his ac­cus­tomed play­room. He was blinded by the sand when de­scend­ing the stairs and fell. Af­ter this ac­ci­dent Joseph built a balustrade up both sides of the stair­way.

123:4.6There was no way in which this ac­ci­dent could have been pre­vented. It was not charge­able to ne­glect by the mid­way tem­po­ral guard­i­ans, one pri­mary and one sec­ondary mid­wayer hav­ing been as­signed to the watch­care of the lad; nei­ther was it charge­able to the guard­ian ser­a­phim. It sim­ply could not have been avoided. But this slight ac­ci­dent, oc­cur­ring while Joseph was ab­sent in En­dor, caused such great anx­i­ety to de­velop in Mary’s mind that she un­wisely tried to keep Je­sus very close to her side for some months.

123:4.7Ma­te­rial ac­ci­dents, com­mon­place oc­cur­rences of a phys­i­cal na­ture, are not ar­bi­trar­ily in­ter­fered with by ce­les­tial per­son­al­i­ties. Un­der or­di­nary cir­cum­stances only mid­way crea­tures can in­ter­vene in ma­te­rial con­di­tions to safe­guard the per­sons of men and women of des­tiny, and even in spe­cial sit­u­a­tions these be­ings can so act only in obe­di­ence to the spe­cific man­dates of their su­pe­ri­ors.

123:4.8And this was but one of a num­ber of such mi­nor ac­ci­dents which sub­se­quently be­fell this in­quis­i­tive and ad­ven­tur­ous youth. If you en­vis­age the av­er­age child­hood and youth of an ag­gres­sive boy, you will have a fairly good idea of the youth­ful ca­reer of Je­sus, and you will be able to imag­ine just about how much anx­i­ety he caused his par­ents, par­tic­u­larly his mother.

46:2.2There are thou­sands upon thou­sands of small lakes but no rag­ing rivers nor ex­pan­sive oceans. There is no rain­fall, nei­ther storms nor bliz­zards, on any of the ar­chi­tec­tural worlds, but there is the daily pre­cip­i­ta­tion of the con­den­sa­tion of mois­ture dur­ing the time of low­est tem­per­a­ture at­tend­ing the light re­ces­sion. (The dew point is higher on a three-gas world than on a two-gas planet like Uran­tia.) The phys­i­cal plant life and the mor­ontia world of liv­ing things both re­quire mois­ture, but this is largely sup­plied by the sub­soil sys­tem of cir­cu­la­tion which ex­tends all over the sphere, even up to the very tops of the high­lands. This wa­ter sys­tem is not en­tirely sub­sur­face, for there are many canals in­ter­con­nect­ing the sparkling lakes of Je­ru­sem.

43:1.3Eden­tia and its as­so­ci­ated worlds have a true at­mo­sphere, the usual three-gas mix­ture which is char­ac­ter­is­tic of such ar­chi­tec­tural cre­ations, and which em­bod­ies the two el­e­ments of Uran­tian at­mo­sphere plus that mor­ontia gas suit­able for the res­pi­ra­tion of mor­ontia crea­tures. But while this at­mo­sphere is both ma­te­rial and mor­ontial, there are no storms or hur­ri­canes; nei­ther is there sum­mer nor win­ter. This ab­sence of at­mo­spheric dis­tur­bances and of sea­sonal vari­a­tion makes it pos­si­ble to em­bel­lish all out­doors on these es­pe­cially cre­ated worlds.

151:5.1The mul­ti­tude con­tin­ued to in­crease through­out the week. On Sab­bath Je­sus has­tened away to the hills, but when Sun­day morn­ing came, the crowds re­turned. Je­sus spoke to them in the early af­ter­noon af­ter the preach­ing of Pe­ter, and when he had fin­ished, he said to his apos­tles: “I am weary of the throngs; let us cross over to the other side that we may rest for a day.”

151:5.2On the way across the lake they en­coun­tered one of those vi­o­lent and sud­den wind­storms which are char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Sea of Gal­i­lee, es­pe­cially at this sea­son of the year. This body of wa­ter is al­most seven hun­dred feet be­low the level of the sea and is sur­rounded by high banks, es­pe­cially on the west. There are steep gorges lead­ing up from the lake into the hills, and as the heated air rises in a pocket over the lake dur­ing the day, there is a ten­dency af­ter sun­set for the cool­ing air of the gorges to rush down upon the lake. These gales come on quickly and some­times go away just as sud­denly.

151:5.3It was just such an evening gale that caught the boat car­ry­ing Je­sus over to the other side on this Sun­day evening. Three other boats con­tain­ing some of the younger evan­ge­lists were trail­ing af­ter. This tem­pest was se­vere, not­with­stand­ing that it was con­fined to this re­gion of the lake, there be­ing no ev­i­dence of a storm on the west­ern shore. The wind was so strong that the waves be­gan to wash over the boat. The high wind had torn the sail away be­fore the apos­tles could furl it, and they were now en­tirely de­pen­dent on their oars as they la­bo­ri­ously pulled for the shore, a lit­tle more than a mile and a half dis­tant.

151:5.4Mean­while Je­sus lay asleep in the stern of the boat un­der a small over­head shel­ter. The Mas­ter was weary when they left Beth­saida, and it was to se­cure rest that he had di­rected them to sail him across to the other side. These ex-fish­er­men were strong and ex­pe­ri­enced oars­men, but this was one of the worst gales they had ever en­coun­tered. Al­though the wind and the waves tossed their boat about as though it were a toy ship, Je­sus slum­bered on undis­turbed. Pe­ter was at the right-hand oar near the stern. When the boat be­gan to fill with wa­ter, he dropped his oar and, rush­ing over to Je­sus, shook him vig­or­ously in or­der to awaken him, and when he was aroused, Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, don’t you know we are in a vi­o­lent storm? If you do not save us, we will all per­ish.”

151:5.5As Je­sus came out in the rain, he looked first at Pe­ter, and then peer­ing into the dark­ness at the strug­gling oars­men, he turned his glance back upon Si­mon Pe­ter, who, in his ag­i­ta­tion, had not yet re­turned to his oar, and said: “Why are all of you so filled with fear? Where is your faith? Peace, be quiet.” Je­sus had hardly ut­tered this re­buke to Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, he had hardly bid­den Pe­ter seek peace where­with to quiet his trou­bled soul, when the dis­turbed at­mo­sphere, hav­ing es­tab­lished its equi­lib­rium, set­tled down into a great calm. The an­gry waves al­most im­me­di­ately sub­sided, while the dark clouds, hav­ing spent them­selves in a short shower, van­ished, and the stars of heaven shone over­head. All this was purely co­in­ci­den­tal as far as we can judge; but the apos­tles, par­tic­u­larly Si­mon Pe­ter, never ceased to re­gard the episode as a na­ture mir­a­cle. It was es­pe­cially easy for the men of that day to be­lieve in na­ture mir­a­cles inas­much as they firmly be­lieved that all na­ture was a phe­nom­e­non di­rectly un­der the con­trol of spirit forces and super­nat­u­ral be­ings.

151:5.6Je­sus plainly ex­plained to the twelve that he had spo­ken to their trou­bled spir­its and had ad­dressed him­self to their fear-tossed minds, that he had not com­manded the el­e­ments to obey his word, but it was of no avail. The Mas­ter’s fol­low­ers al­ways per­sisted in plac­ing their own in­ter­pre­ta­tion on all such co­in­ci­den­tal oc­cur­rences. From this day on they in­sisted on re­gard­ing the Mas­ter as hav­ing ab­so­lute power over the nat­u­ral el­e­ments. Pe­ter never grew weary of recit­ing how “even the winds and the waves obey him.”

151:5.7It was late in the evening when Je­sus and his as­so­ciates reached the shore, and since it was a calm and beau­ti­ful night, they all rested in the boats, not go­ing ashore un­til shortly af­ter sun­rise the next morn­ing. When they were gath­ered to­gether, about forty in all, Je­sus said: “Let us go up into yon­der hills and tarry for a few days while we pon­der over the prob­lems of the Fa­ther’s king­dom.”

187:5.1Al­though it was early in the sea­son for such a phe­nom­e­non, shortly af­ter twelve o’clock the sky dark­ened by rea­son of the fine sand in the air. The peo­ple of Je­ru­sa­lem knew that this meant the com­ing of one of those hot-wind sand­storms from the Ara­bian Desert. Be­fore one o’clock the sky was so dark the sun was hid, and the re­main­der of the crowd has­tened back to the city. When the Mas­ter gave up his life shortly af­ter this hour, less than thirty peo­ple were pres­ent, only the thir­teen Ro­man sol­diers and a group of about fif­teen be­liev­ers. These be­liev­ers were all women ex­cept two, Jude, Je­sus’ brother, and John Zeb­e­dee, who re­turned to the scene just be­fore the Mas­ter ex­pired.

187:5.2Shortly af­ter one o’clock, amidst the in­creas­ing dark­ness of the fierce sand­storm, Je­sus be­gan to fail in hu­man con­scious­ness. His last words of mercy, for­give­ness, and ad­mo­ni­tion had been spo­ken. His last wish—con­cern­ing the care of his mother—had been ex­pressed. Dur­ing this hour of ap­proach­ing death the hu­man mind of Je­sus re­sorted to the rep­e­ti­tion of many pas­sages in the He­brew scrip­tures, par­tic­u­larly the Psalms. The last con­scious thought of the hu­man Je­sus was con­cerned with the rep­e­ti­tion in his mind of a por­tion of the Book of Psalms now known as the twen­ti­eth, twenty-first, and twenty-sec­ond Psalms. While his lips would of­ten move, he was too weak to ut­ter the words as these pas­sages, which he so well knew by heart, would pass through his mind. Only a few times did those stand­ing by catch some ut­ter­ance, such as, “I know the Lord will save his anointed,” “Your hand shall find out all my en­e­mies,” and “My God, my God, why have you for­saken me?” Je­sus did not for one mo­ment en­ter­tain the slight­est doubt that he had lived in ac­cor­dance with the Fa­ther’s will; and he never doubted that he was now lay­ing down his life in the flesh in ac­cor­dance with his Fa­ther’s will. He did not feel that the Fa­ther had for­saken him; he was merely recit­ing in his van­ish­ing con­scious­ness many Scrip­tures, among them this twenty-sec­ond Psalm, which be­gins with “My God, my God, why have you for­saken me?” And this hap­pened to be one of the three pas­sages which were spo­ken with suf­fi­cient clear­ness to be heard by those stand­ing by.

187:5.3The last re­quest which the mor­tal Je­sus made of his fel­lows was about half past one o’clock when, a sec­ond time, he said, “I thirst,” and the same cap­tain of the guard again moist­ened his lips with the same sponge wet in the sour wine, in those days com­monly called vine­gar.

187:5.4The sand­storm grew in in­ten­sity and the heav­ens in­creas­ingly dark­ened. Still the sol­diers and the small group of be­liev­ers stood by. The sol­diers crouched near the cross, hud­dled to­gether to pro­tect them­selves from the cut­ting sand. The mother of John and oth­ers watched from a dis­tance where they were some­what shel­tered by an over­hang­ing rock. When the Mas­ter fi­nally breathed his last, there were pres­ent at the foot of his cross John Zeb­e­dee, his brother Jude, his sis­ter Ruth, Mary Mag­da­lene, and Re­becca, one­time of Sep­pho­ris.

123:4.1This was, in­deed, an event­ful year in Je­sus’ life. Early in Jan­uary a great snow­storm oc­curred in Gal­i­lee. Snow fell two feet deep, the heav­i­est snow­fall Je­sus saw dur­ing his life­time and one of the deep­est at Naz­a­reth in a hun­dred years.