Nature Has No Agenda

This morning, I sat in my well-worn leather recliner, a calico cat stretched comfortably across my left arm while my right hand filled another page of my journal. It is part of my morning ritual whenever I am not on the road.

Eventually, I came to a stopping point. The pages of my journal remained open, but my pen rested quietly across them. I sat for a few moments longer, looking out the window. The sun had risen, and patches of blue sky had begun to appear through the dense green canopy of the trees.

My first reaction, almost instinctive, was relief. The violent storms and heavy rains that had swept through the night had either moved on or exhausted themselves somewhere beyond the horizon.

Then my thoughts drifted to another morning several years ago.

I had driven to Florida's Gulf Coast to witness Hurricane Michael firsthand—one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the United States. I wanted to see, firsthand, what a hurricane of that magnitude was truly like.

As I watched the storm unfold, I understood why so many who lived in its path described it as violent. The winds were relentless, the rain blinding, and the sheer power of the storm inspired both fear and awe.

Yet the greatest revelation came not during the hurricane itself, but the following morning.

I had spent the night in Fairhope, Alabama, many miles away from where the hurricane made landfall. As I walked the short distance from my hotel room to the breakfast area, I stopped almost involuntarily.

The sky was an impossibly deep blue. A warm, gentle breeze drifted steadily through the air. Everything felt peaceful.

Less than twenty-four hours earlier, I had been sitting in my Ford Expedition fewer than two hundred miles away, witnessing Hurricane Michael's fury. Now the air was calm, the sky inviting, and the world seemed almost untouched.

It was as though nothing had happened.

Later that morning, I drove toward the areas where the storm had passed. Even there, the skies remained brilliantly clear. As I continued west toward Pensacola, I passed dozens of surfers taking advantage of the larger waves the storm had left behind. Once again, beneath cloudless skies, life was already moving forward.

It was then that I realized something I have never forgotten.

Nature has no agenda.

The hurricane was not angry. It was not seeking revenge. It was not punishing anyone or intentionally destroying anything. It was simply responding to changes within the natural world, rebalancing itself according to forces far older than humanity. It just happened that people and their homes lay in its path.

For much of human history, storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods were believed to be the wrath of angry gods. People offered sacrifices in hopes of calming divine tempers and preventing another catastrophe.

Standing in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, I saw something entirely different.

Nature was not lashing out.

It was simply being nature.

The trees did not resent the wind. The birds did not curse the rain. The shoreline did not seek revenge against the sea. Everything simply adapted and continued.

Perhaps that is where we differ.

We often assign intention where none exists. We interpret hardship as hostility. We search for someone—or something—to blame. But nature offers another perspective. It reminds us that not every destructive force is driven by malice. Sometimes the world is simply responding to circumstances beyond our control.

This morning, as I sat once again in my recliner, the blue sky returned after another night of storms. It looked much the same as it did that morning in Alabama.

And once again, I was reminded that while nature eventually returns to balance, we humans often carry yesterday's storms far longer than we need to.