Pillars of cloud and fire

Kīlauea - a pillar of "fire" here being bent by the trade-wind.

In the book of Exodus we hear that when Moses led people of God from Egypt, on their journey to freedom and the Promised Land, they were led by God in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

            I personally saw those pillars in Hawai‘i. I saw the pillar of volcanic gases rising from the Kilauea caldera and at night the view was even more mesmerizing. That pillar of gases was shining red and orange being illuminated by the incandescence of lava lake.

            I have no doubts that was the image which biblical authors tried to describe. And it is not just another rationalistic explanation trying to explain biblical miracles. This recognition offers us several important insights.

            The first one is factual, geologic and geographic because the Bible does not describe just any volcanism. It clearly alludes to an eruption of a shield volcano. Hawaiian volcanoes are of this kind. But the same type of shield volcanoes also exists on the western side of the Arab peninsula all along the Red Sea.

            Theologians, historians and cartographers of the early 20^th century were specifically locating Biblical events at Hallat al Badr volcano in the North West Arabia, but it does not fit the time. That volcano seems older than human history. There are, nevertheless, other much younger volcanoes further south. Some of them active in historical times. One eruption and its lava flow almost destroyed Medina in the XIII century CE. Another volcano on the border with Yemen erupted as recently as 1810.

            I am not saying that Exodus took place in what is today Saudi Arabia. But I am convinced that some biblical authors had the first-hand experience with volcanism in this broader geographic area. Just think about it! At least part of our faith tradition, and the one as important as  theophany, was anchored in the broader region of Mecca and Medina as it powerfully influenced the imagination of biblical authors.

            And that is the other insight we can gain. Shield volcanism is calmer, more peaceful than destructive eruptions of stratovolcanoes (like almost proverbial Vesuvius or recent American experience with Mount Saint Helens.) Lava lakes and lava flows on lava fields last for a long time and are truly awe inspiring, especially if you get closer.

            On Kilauea I finally experienced what Rudolf Otto meant by Mysterium tremendum et fascinans (Divine mystery before which we both tremble and to which we are at the same time attracted). Before I read about it, I knew about it, I studied it. On Kilauea, I experienced it in my entire body. I witnessed pillars of cloud and fire and was forever touched and transformed by this encounter and its intersection with my biblical faith. The glowing light, the radiating heat, the volcanic smell, the deep infrasonic hardly audible rumbling all of it touched not only senses, but permeated my entire body. Now I know first hand why the biblical authors used this image.

            On our journey we are being led by awe inspiring, dangerous, yet benevolent, yes loving and protecting God. Come to rejoice in divine exodic liberation, divine presence, protection and guidance. The march to freedom continues.

A "pillar of cloud" above Halemaʻumaʻu crater in the light of the rising sun. 

Volcanic Theology

Recently I went to Hawaiʻi (Big Island) to study ancient Polynesian religion. Little did I know how alive and widespread I would find it (at least some aspects of it)!

   

Popular artistic depiction of goddess Pele.

     On my first evening on the island, in front of a grocery store, I overheard two locals deep in discussion of the ongoing volcanic eruption. They actually talked about the goddess Pele and "what She was up to." All Hawaiʻians talk about their volcano goddess: Christians (no matter whether Catholics or Protestants), Buddhists, Shinto, Jewish, even the arch-atheists (and interestingly, also professional geologists and volcanologists regardless of their religion). All talk about Pele like an old acquaintance, yet almost always with deep respect. It is their way to talk about their daily lives, and about the very land on which they live.
    Don’t frown or scoff at them. We do similar things right here on the US South and East Coasts. We also talk about Sandy, Katrina, Andrew... we give them names, we talk about their personalities, and these are ephemeral, albeit powerful tropical cyclones. People in Hawaiʻi live with their volcanos day in and day out and have been doing so for centuries and millennia.
   I heard Hawaiʻians as well as immigrants talking about their volcano goddess more often and with greater passion this time because of the imminent danger of a lava flow burning its way through a local town. It opened for me some interesting insights into the origins of human religiosity, but it also highlighted deep and often neglected aspects of our own Judeo-Christian faith, spirituality, and social and environmental activism. This Sunday we will again listen to Volcanic Yahwism; flowing lava will illuminate for us the nature of the Ardent (Burning) Love of our God.

A lava flow burns its way through an orchard in Pāhoa
(source: USGA, Hawaii Volcano Observatory)

Glassblowing God

Do you remember your first, or some other powerful childhood wonder? I was born and grew up in the glass-making part of the Czech Republic. My maternal grandfather worked in a glass factory making hardwood molds for glassmakers. I remember watching master craftsmen draw red-glowing blobs of molten glass from infernal ovens and blow them into the most sublime shapes. People call it hand-made glass, but from my youngest age I have known that the finest glass is in fact breath-made.
    It reminds me of a beautiful saying from the Gospel of Philip: “Glass carafe and earthenware jug are both made by means of fire. But if glass carafes break they are done over, for they came into being through a breath. If earthenware jugs break, however, they are destroyed, for they came into being without breath.” I know it is very unlikely to be Jesus’ own saying as blown glass was just appearing at this time and familiarity with glass belonged to a different social class. I also know that this saying from the Gospel of Philip is loaded with self-centered and self promoting sentiments. It was to illustrate the superiority of a glass blowing Christian(Gnostic) God over the Jewish God of the Hebrew Bible who was churning up just pottery... (Jeremiah 18)
    But this lovely metaphor does not need to be an antagonistic replacement, it can also be a genius update of the potter’s parable. The spiritual egotism of this gnostic saying can be eliminated as soon as we recognize The Master Glass-Maker at work not only in the elite group of the elect few, but in the forming and reshaping of the wide open world. After all, don’t volcanoes, with their infrared radiance and subsonic deep rumbling, look like some gigantic ovens? Doesn’t flowing lava look, move and behave much like molten glass? And just like a grain of gold melted in glass makes it ruby-red, or cobalt makes it unmistakably blue, or uranium teal green, so do different gasses, minerals and circumstances change colours and shapes of lava rocks. I guess my fascination with volcanos must have grown from my early childhood wonder.
    Different people have different early encounters with wonder. But the wonder itself is the same. And if we allow this wide-eyed child-like wonder enchantment to stay with us to adulthood, it has spectacular powers to keep our minds nimble, to inspire us, to ground us, and to keep us in harmony inside and outside. Come this Sunday to celebrate this mysterious power of our early wonders.

Glassblowing in Corning, NY and lava flowing near Kalapana, HI

Biblical horror story

I have been always a dull and boring person - just ask my sons! When they were teenagers and wanted to go to some juicy horror movie I would not go. Understand, in the Czech Republic for certain movies, parents were required to accompany minors, so when I did not go, it meant they did not go also. Adding insult to injury, I told them, “Read the Bible instead!” And I meant it and I still do! If you desire vivid nightmares you don't need any horror movies, read the Bible! The Fourth Book of Moses, the book of Numbers, for instance, has an ample supply of such material. One such story, etched into my mind, is the story of the Korahite rebellion (Numbers 16).
 

    The final version of this story, as preserved in the Bible, is clearly a result of several editorial stages. The core of the nightmare is the oldest part, in which Dathan and Abiram challenged Moses’ leadership. Moses “piously” prayed for a divine sign and it immediately followed: Earth (in the story she is personified) opened her mouth and swallowed the rebels with their families and with all their possessions; they descended alive to Hell (Scheol) and Earth closed its mouth over them. (Thankfully, we are spared details how she burped afterwards!) I do not know about you, but being swallowed alive by (Mother) Earth can wake me up in the middle of night screaming, kicking and covered in cold sweat. After all, aren’t nightmares and dark myths made of the same subconscious stuff Mr. Jung?
 

    Every good myth and any real nightmare must contain at least some kernel of reality. Almost on the opposite side of Earth from the biblical Middle East I came across a surprisingly similar story. Early in the historic times (the end of the XVIII century), shortly after the first contact with Europeans, King Kamehameha I unified the entire Hawaiian archipelago. It did not happen peacefully. On Big Island one local chief named Keōua presented substantial resistance.
 

   

Non-violent eruption at the summit of Kilauea Volcano.

In 1790 after yet another indecisive battle near Hilo, Keōua was returning to his home base on the other side of the island. He took his warriors and their families (Hawaiians, just like Israelites, were moving with their families) by way of the Kilauea Volcano. They camped at the summit caldera and since the volcano seemed restless, they wanted to appease the goddess Pele, Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes, by presenting some gifts. It did not seem to help; the volcano was getting more and more active and thus they decided to continue their journey home.
 

    Keōua divided his people into three groups. The first group left the summit under a dark volcanic cloud. The second group left the summit while the situation was getting progressively worse. The third group was still at the summit when Kilauea exploded in the largest explosive eruption for many centuries. The third group left in haste. Soon they came across the second group, which appeared to be resting by the road, but when they came closer, they realized that every single member of the second group was dead.

    

Ka 'u Desert covered with sharp-edged A'a lava
and volcanic ash from 1790 eruption.

The first and third groups survived, but the middle group, at least 400 people, was hit by a pyroclastic surge: hurricane force winds of superheated steam, ash and suffocating gasses. Although the third group was closer to the explosion, the second group was in the path of the surge, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Soon rain fell on the layers of volcanic ash changing them into thick mud. It preserved the footprints of surviving ancient Hawaiians. Those footprints are still visible in Ka‘u desert. Keōua took the catastrophe for a divine sign. His district was covered in volcanic ash and hit by crop failure. He lost spirit and the willingness to fight. Next year he gave himself up and was executed, sacrificed in Pu‘ukoholā Heiau, a temple which Kamehameha just finished.

I find these two stories of Dathan and Abiram on one hand and Keōua on the other hand surprisingly similar. Both stories clearly originate in some underlying natural disasters, most likely of a similar, volcanic nature. But there are also substantial and worrisome differences. And the Biblical tradition is not coming out of this comparison well. Keōua did not blame his second column for being despicable sinners deserving death. Keōua did not blame the victims, but took blame on himself. The Biblical tradition, on the other hand put the blame unequivocally on the victims - they deserved the harshest punishment. And as if it was not enough, postexilic textual editors used this ugly story for their own second temple ideological ends - political and religious propaganda. They added and mixed in another storyline about the Korihites and their priestly challenge to the Levites’ leadership. Thus centuries later they re-used the story for the setting of scores between two priestly groups of Korahites and Aaronites/Levites - just guess who were the Second Temple winners.
 

    This is for me the greatest nightmare, this is for me the greatest horror of this biblical story - transforming the LORD into a killing monster while blaming the victims; and the Bible does not only that, it takes it one step further, it uses a natural disaster and the tragedy of its original victims for self-serving political and ideological ends. As I have told you, if you want nightmares, read the Bible!
 

    But not everything is completely dark. By writing what I have just written, by reading what you have just read, by recognizing and acknowledging this problematic, nightmarish nature of some biblical passages we have taken the first steps towards healing. We are being liberated from the idolizing of the Bible; we set ourselves free from dangerous fundamentalism. Simultaneously we learn to recognize similar inhuman arguments in and among ourselves and in our society. Furthermore, we train ourselves to respond to disasters differently, not by finger-pointing and assigning the blame, but by reaching out with compassion and helping hands. Sometimes even nasty horror stories can have a real positive outcome.

Eldmessa - The Mass of Fire

Two hundred thirty one years ago this Sunday, exactly on July 20, 1783 (which also happened to be a Sunday) the Reverend Jón Steingrímsson preached his famous sermon - Eldmessa - “The mass of fire.” Earlier that summer, on June 8th (which that year was Pentecost) the volcano Lakagígar (also known as Laki) erupted with ferocious force just north of his South-Icelandic home Kirkjubæjarklaustur. It was one of the largest known Icelandic eruptions. It produced 3.4 cubic miles of lava and changed the global climate for the next several years: for instance next winter the Mississippi River froze over at New Orleans and ice floated in the Gulf of Mexico.
    On Sunday July 20th a mighty lava flow was about to enter the Kirkjubæjarklaustur village and the church was likely the first to be swallowed. Everyone was ready to run but their minister coolheadedly insisted on keeping the last Sunday service before they left. When they went to the service, they could see the lava flow creeping forward, but after the service, the lava stopped and never moved again. Their home village was spared!
    Was it just a coincidence? Was it the power of worship? Was it the stubborn recklessness of an old minister? Was it his observational talent, realizing that the lava flow was about to stop? He was after all a real man of the Enlightenment, a true polyhistor with a Renaissance personality: physician, historian, naturalist... He wrote and published articles about volcanism before and after this eruption. We will never know for certain whether it was an educated guess or a miracle, but one thing I know from my direct experience: everyone in Iceland knows and proudly shares the story of Eldmessa and the Rev. Jón Steingrímsson - their eldklerkur  -“fire-pastor.”

Signature of Jon Steingrimsson

He used this disaster and miracle to build up community spirit and cohesion, thus preparing his parish for upcoming years of severe hardships, crop-failures, livestock demise and widespread famine.
    Disasters are unavoidable. They might be natural, they might be human-made, they might be human-complemented, but the important thing has always been how people chose to narratize and remember them. Disasters are by definition beyond our control, but we control the stories, we control what we say in those stories. Those stories are important, they have real impact in our world, they influence human behaviour, our reactions to disasters: for instance how prepared and willing we are to help. Thus these narratives have power to disclose a lot about our understanding of the world, about our understanding of God, about our society and about us. We will try to achieve just that as we continue looking at Volcanic Yahwism and more specifically the volcanic story of Dathan and Abiram (Datan and Aviram) from the Book of Numbers.

South Icelandic sod chapel (not in Kirkjubæjarklaustur).

Alois of Arabia and Volcanic Yahwism

Meet “Alois of Arabia” - politically unsuccessful and today virtually unknown rival of Lawrence of Arabia.
     His full name and titles were the Rev. Prof. Dr. Alois Musil. Among Arabs he was also known as Musa ar Rueili. He was a Roman Catholic priest from Moravia, a professor of Hebrew and Old Testament studies in seminary, a published anthropologist, explorer and geographer of the Middle East.
    One hundred years ago the anthropologist and archeologist T.E.Lawrence was recruited by British Intelligence to instigate an anti-Ottoman rebellion among Arabs. Alois Musil was instructed by his country - the Austro-Hungarian Empire - to keep it from happening.
    We all know how it ended - Lawrence of Arabia was phenomenally successful in undermining the Ottoman Empire. It is less known, that after the Great War, Lawrence advised strongly against the Allied Powers carving and dividing the Near East into artificial colonies. One hundred years later and with all those original colonial borders on fire, we can appreciate his wisdom.
    And a century later Alois Musil is also being appreciated again, in this case for his interesting geographical and theological insight. With his theological as well as ethnographic and geographic knowledge, he located some pivotal Exodus stories not in the Sinai Peninsula, but he placed them in the volcanic fields of Northwest Arabia.
    Now, after a century in virtual obscurity, Musil’s (and other’s) old theories are being given a fresh look. I would still warn against using them to rationalize biblical miracles; I would still warn against an attempt to prove the historicity of biblical narratives. But these century old theories, together with modern volcanological knowledge can offer us new insights into the complex, eruptive, disruptive, truly geology-strong and above all Arabian (sic!) origins and nature of our Judeo-Christian Faith. This Sunday we will look for Volcanic Yahwism. Auspiciously it brings together my two big passions, theology and volcanology.

   And if you read this far, here is Mark Twain's vivid description of his 1871 visit to the Kilauea Volcano and his inspiring observation of the volcanic gas emissions, mostly steam, rising from the Helema’uma’u Crater being illuminated at dark by the incandescence of the lake of molten lava beneath it. (Mark Twain: Roughing It, Chapter LXXIV.)

     A colossal column of cloud towered to a great height in the air immediately above the crater, and the outer swell of every one of its vast folds was dyed with a rich crimson luster, which was subdued to a pale rose tint in the depressions between. It glowed like a muffled torch and stretched upward to a dizzy height toward the zenith. I thought it just possible that its like had not been seen since the children of Israel wandered on their long march through the desert so many centuries ago over a path illuminated by the mysterious “pillar of fire.” And I was sure that I now had a vivid conception of what the majestic “pillar of fire” was like, which almost amounted to a revelation. 

I personally share Mark Twain's feelings of awe and reverence. A similar, although smaller, lava lake has been present in the so-called Overlook Vent of Helema’uma’u Crater since Spring 2008 producing identical phenomena as documented on the pictures above or beneath.