Colossal Troubles

The biggest problems are bigger still when they are troubles that directly affect us. Truly tough difficulties are ones we have to address ourselves. I remember greatly appreciating a feature documentary released in 2006 called “Nobelity.” It featured interviews with nine Nobel laureates, to look through their eyes at the world’s most pressing problems.

One voice was that of Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979, a scientist at the University of Texas in Austin, and member of the Physics and Astronomy Departments. He addressed the challenge of building a cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world. Another was Richard E. Smalley, Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His part was filmed from his office at Rice University, speaking about new sources of clean and reliable energy, and relating it to solving other world problems, including the need for clean water and plentiful food.

The laureate speaking on health was Dr. Harold E. Varmus, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1989. Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize, 1997, spoke to banning land mines. At the time, tens of millions of mines were deployed around the world in 80 countries, and each year mines were claiming as many as fifty thousand new victims — most of them civilians, many of them children — who were crippled, maimed, and blinded by mines.

There were three other Nobel Peace Prize laureates featured, including Desmond Tutu. These, and the other two, with Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Economics, spoke to the matters of massively deadly armaments, poverty, justice, and unity.  We learn about problems like this in the world; we see the dire need for their solutions, even if we don’t realize their direct effect on our lives. We see the need even if we don’t know what we can do. Other troubles are right in front of us and demand our action whether we know what to do or not.

This week, I am looking ahead to the scripture lessons for Sunday. They carry a message of God being sufficient to meet colossal troubles bigger than we are. David, the young man who tends sheep for his family and plays the lyre to soothe the king becomes, surprisingly, the one to face a giant of a man. Jesus, who is sleeping in the boat while disciples are panicking over the deadly squall threatening their lives, stands among them and with just his voice, quells the storm. Paul chronicles the life and death experiences they have endured by the grace of God. In the days ahead, let us consider the wondrous promise our devotion to God and our confidence in divine love and omnipotence will uphold us when gargantuan troubles loom.