Volume 28, No.7                                                   
February 16, 2003

Eruption Disruption

  The blast was equal to 27,000 atomic bombs dropped at the rate of one per second for nine hours.  In one terrifying day, the landscape in southwestern Washington State was changed forever.

   On May 18, 1980, a medium-sized earthquake rumbled beneath Mt. St. Helens.  The movement triggered an avalanche that took off the top of a pressure bulge, exposing the white-hot interior to cool air. Suddenly, water trapped inside the mountain flashed into steam, which rapidly expanded. With nowhere to go, the steam erupted from the mountain with a horrifying fury, hurling enough ash and rock into the air to cover a square mile to the height of three Empire State Buildings. As the north face of the mountain fell, it touched off the largest landslide in recorded history, sending tons of mud and debris hurtling down the stricken slope.

   Though authorities had warned everyone out of the area, 57 people died, including a man found in a car with his camera still held in front of his face.  Another car held two people who’d tried to out race the ash cloud.  Most victims died from inhaling hot, toxic gas and ash.
 
  More than 800,000 tons of that ash fell on Yakima, 85 miles east of the blast, prompting a huge clean-up.  In a bizarre twist, envelopes of ash mailed by residents of Pasco to friends and relatives around the country kept breaking open, ruining the city’s postal machinery.

   Though more than two million animals, birds and fish were killed in the explosion, creation began to renew itself almost immediately.  Gophers tilled the ash.  The elk came back and their droppings fertilized the gophers’ work.  Soon, fireweed put down roots that reached past the ash into the fertile soil below, turning entire hillsides into carpetsof pink flowers.  Though trees on the mountain now stand twenty feet tall, some of the scarring is permanent.  Mt. St. Helens is now 1,200 feet lower than it was before the eruption.

   We, too, are diminished by every explosion, every blast of fury, hurt and frustration.  But we can learn some crucial lessons from Mt. St. Helens, beginning with the need to watch for warning signs.   Though outbursts of anger always have a trigger — usually something small and seemingly insignificant — the root causes of rage run much deeper.  We must be careful not to ignore the ever-building exasperation of unspoken pain, disappointment and defeat, or the slow suffocation of deep-seated dreams  We must confront our fears and negativity long before those pent-up problems explode in a fit of wrath and fury.  We can learn to be like God, “slow to get angry and rich in unfailing love (Numbers 14:18), but only when we ask him to reveal to us the truth about ourselves then grant us release from the inner pressures that would otherwise erupt into ire and indignation.

   Rather than bury every slight, insult and irritation, allowing them to build into bitterness and resentment, we must be honest about how we feel, speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). As Paul warns, anger grows best in constricted spaces, among those who’ve “shut their minds and hardened their hearts.” (v.18). We, though, belong to each other, he says.  So “don’t sin by letting anger gain control over you.  Don’t let the sun go down while you’re still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil.” (v. 25-27)  We must be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry because “anger can never make things right in God’s sight.” (James 1:19,20)

   Instead, anger does devastating damage to relationships.  It turns every atmosphere toxic, and entombs the work of God under layer-upon-layer of acrimony and ill-will. It’s the innocent who suffer. Cleaning up the mess is a long and painful process.  Even a small amount of anger’s aftermath can make it impossible for us to deliver God’s love.

   It is possible to repair some of the damage, especially when our roots reach beyond the ash of animosity and “go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love” (Eph. 3:17).  But let’s remember that only “a fool gives full vent to anger.”  (29:11). Don’t blow it.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To subscribe, contact sgamble@bfree.on.ca