We were sitting at an all-you-can-eat fish fry in northern Minnesota. The fish on offer was walleye. A delicate, delicious fish that is the pride of the Lake of the Woods, the pride of Minnesota. If you have never tried fresh deep-fried walleye, you are in for a culinary treat.
I have only caught one walleye in my life. It was early in our marriage. We were in a simple aluminum boat with Margie’s grandmother at the tiller. A beautiful day, and my line had been prepared by grandmother and thrown into the water. “Hold the line, loosely,” I was told. I was about to ask what that meant when my fishing pole bent double. “Set the hook!” I was told. “Bring it in!” Apparently, I did something right, because I reeled in my line and there was a huge fish at the end. Larger than I had ever seen. Grandmother reached over the edge of the boat, grabbed the fish, declared it a walleye too small to care about, and threw it back in the water. Thus ended my career as a walleye fisherman.
Anyway, as I say, recently we were at a fishing resort in Lake of the Woods, at their Friday all-you-can-eat walleye dinner. I was on my second helping. The locals panned it, saying it was over-cooked, too dry, and though that may be true, I was enjoying it. I eat walleye rarely, and this was delightful. I went back for thirds.
One of the men sharing our table was a lifelong Minnesotan. I asked him whether he thought this next winter would be “more normal.” He said he doubted it. The winters were getting milder by the year, he said. We no longer got the 40 below zero plunges that lasted a week or longer, nor were there blizzards that shut things down for days. “I don’t believe in climate change, of course,” he said, “but our climate is sure changing.”
I choked briefly on my walleye and wanted to ask some questions, but he had gone on to other conversations.
As our climate has changed, we have had not just milder winters but unusual summer rainstorms. Massive downfalls that overpower the rain gutters on our house. And that means water in our basement—for the first time since we moved in.
The storms have been impressive, occasionally setting off tornado warnings. Constant lightning that makes the clouds glow. Thunder that sounds like an advancing legion, strong winds buffeting trees and sending broken branches against the house.
It’s easy to see how the ancients saw in such storm clouds hints of the divine. Only God held such power. In Phoenician mythology, Baal was a storm god, as is Thor in the Nordic accounts. And with that destructive might, comes beauty. Majestic clouds billowing high into the sky, illuminated by a setting sun and lightning to become pillars of light that seem to hint at the glory of God’s throne and presence. “O Lord my God, you are very great,” says the Hebrew poet. “You are clothed with honor and majesty / wrapped in light as with a garment…/ you make the clouds your chariot, / you ride on the wings of the wind.” (Psalm 104)
In Holy Scripture clouds often mark the interface between the visible and invisible parts of created reality. It’s as if the majesty of the Almighty punches through so that something normally hidden is briefly apprehended by mere mortals. Unapproachable glory and unimaginable judgment. As in the first chapter of the Hebrew prophet Nahum:
A jealous and avenging God is the Lord…
The Lord is slow to anger but great in power…
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
The Lord is good,
a stronghold on a day of trouble…
I suspect the experience and mythic significance of the Shekinah Glory permeates the imagination of humankind. It permeates mine and is reinforced by the massive storms that have come to southern Minnesota as a result of climate change.
Photo credit: the author with his iPhone.
