MOUNT ST. HELENS AWAKENS
Sleepily, she awakes from her century
and a half of mundane dormancy,
And her scurrilous foreboding yawning,
casts an eerie shadow --
The trees stand tall, straight and beautiful
As Spirit Lake serenely reflects their images,
As the cougar, deer and elk nervously pace
their forest homes --
Campers, hikers and fishermen enjoy their back
to nature retreat, obtusely touching life and death,
No one understands her haughty act; tenaciously
we entreat her to go back to sleep,
For the gray dust that she so freely spread,
brought obscene starkness to her neighbors
And their friends!
by Cheryl Ellen Baxter ©
RELATED SCRIPTURES
Though Portland didn't get the worst of the ash fallout from the big eruption, we got enough ash to make everything look as if it was another planet. Gray ash covered the cars, trees, plants, houses, sidewalks, and everything else. The ash appeared to be a thick layer of fine gray sand on absolutely everything.
It was a very eerie looking. Once the ash settled, in a couple of days I went outside and scooped up a plastic bucket full of ash, from the sidewalk in front of my house. This gave me enough ash for souvenirs, the next time I came home to Texas for a visit.
There had been some small eruptions letting off steam and a sprinkling of ash in March, and until Mount St. Helens violently erupted on May 18,1980, and covered the whole surrounding region with volcanic ash.
The north face of the mountain collapsed and started an avalanche that scorched about 150 square miles of pristine forest. The explosion killed 57 people, making it the deadliest volcanic eruption in US history. It was also the most economically devastating, eruption, and caused an estimated $1.1 billion in damages.
The volcano is 45 miles northeast of Portland in southwest Washington. There were numerous smaller eruptions of Mount St. Helens before and after the big one on May 18, 1980 in that same year, with over 100 smaller earthquakes in the vicinity of the mountain.
The event was classified as a VEI-5 event and is considered to be equivalent to 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
On August 27, 1982, a 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument at the site was created. While letting the environment heal from the eruptions on its own, the park has been used for research. -- Cheryl
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Mark 13:7-8 -- And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
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Isaiah 30:33 -- The funeral pyre has long been ready, prepared for Molech, the Assyrian god; it is piled high with wood. The breath of the Lord, like fire from a volcano, will set it all on fire.
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Romans 8:22-23 -- For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
