Sturm Und Drang

Americans are now experiencing tremendous storm and stress — or Sturm und Drang, as Germans call it. Much of the angst has to do with the economy.

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Recently, I was reminded of this when a bank teller said she was almost to the point where she must decide whether to buy $4.00 gas, or ride a bicycle ten miles to and from her job so that she’d have enough money left to buy food. And storms! The Mississippi River is succumbing to an incessant inflow of more and more water, both from tributaries and rainfall, reminiscent of the 1973 floods. That was my first year as a Delta cotton farmer. Old Man River’s levees, ten miles distant, groaned under increasing torrential flow, and backwater from streams inundated thousands of cropland acres. Vast sheets of water covered the land. I could cruise across fields in my fishing boat. Those of us who worked the land reminded ourselves that Mother Nature is more often benevolent than malevolent, that we should cope as best possible, and must accept nature’s course. Lines from a Robert Frost poem sum up this sentiment:

That day she put our heads together, Fate had her imagination about her, Your head so much concerned with outer, Mine with inner, weather.

If there is any optimism despite the current tribulations, it is that inner and outer weather — storm and stress — have an annealing effect on people, confirming the old saying: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Americans don’t quit; they get going. Such was the case in the 1930s, often referred to as the Dirty Thirties. It was then that the opposite of floods — extreme drought — tested the will of those who settled the Great Plains. Researchers estimate that in a two-day period, upper level winds carried 350 million tons of silt from the Great Plains all the way to the East Coast — and even into the Atlantic Ocean, where 300 miles from shore, ships’ decks collected dust. “Okies” fled the parched land and journeyed to the West Coast, where they didn’t fare much better. But succeeding generations, toughened by economic and meteorological blows and by their forebears’ courageous determination, did what they knew how to do — farm the land — and turned the region beyond the Rocky Mountains into an agricultural cornucopia. From the pilgrims who first set foot on the eastern seaboard to the Okies who put down roots on the West Coast, through wars, economic disasters, and natural cataclysms, this country’s people always cope with difficulties and emerge better and stronger. As we Americans prepare to celebrate Memorial Day, we must honor those who not only gave the last full measure of devotion on foreign battlefields, but also those who fought and won economic and natural wars on the home front. We must remember that, regardless of the stress in our personal lives or that brought on by the forces of nature — God is always in control. He will lead us through the Sturm und Drang.