We seem to have begun a January thaw, with temperatures in the forties and fifties.
This spring-like weather won’t last, I do predict, but it’s rather nice and comforting, in the middle of
winter, as it breaks the usual cold spells we have come to expect in January.
This weather reminds me
of the great thaw that must have taken place when the Ice Ages began to end.
Most scientists now believe there were
four major advances and retreats of ice. The latest one, and the one we know most about, which came down over much of Europe,
northern Asia, and the northern half of North America, is thought to have occurred around 14,000 years ago.
What
is now referred to as a “Little Ice Age” took place in the Northern Hemisphere between 1560 and 1660, causing
what is called “The General Crisis” in Europe, because the growing season was shortened, and famine became a cause
of many European wars.
Glaciers became vast ice sheets in the “Big Ice Age” around 14,000 years
ago, and in most places there were glaciers a mile and a half thick, and as they slowly pushed down across the lands, they
scarred and scoured everything in their path. There were a whole series of advances and retreats, so this erosion by flood
and flowing water, with their consequent deposits, was repeated time and again.
As each of us continues
our Journey “on this side of the Jordon River” most of us have been scarred and scoured many times by emotional
and spiritual disappointments, loss of loved ones, and many unexpected hardships, which have been repeated time and time again
during our life-times.
Unlike the effects of the Ice Ages on the land, we humans are gifted with the
personal power to choose how we will be affected by the negative side of the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
“As
we think, so we are.” We humans are blessed with the personal power to make thoughtful and purposeful choices
in the midst of a sometimes cruel and seemingly unloving world around us. To paraphrase a quote attributed to
Hannibal, “Where there is no loving way, I will create one.” Our personal and spiritual mind-power has the potentiality
to work for our advantage or our disadvantage. The choice is ours, even when we face an emotional and spiritual
Ice Age. fb
