It has already been crowded off the front pages of our papers by the newer catastrophes on Wall Street but it still defies the imagination. To see the piles of matchstick-like wood that once were homes, the concrete slabs that mark where houses stood, the total lack of foliage that makes what once was street seem like a moonscape—to see this makes it hard to say that this is Galveston.

I have a friend who lives there. Since I cannot contact him now, and since he is a prudent and intelligent person, I can only believe that he and his family are safe somewhere else in Texas.

I keep coming back to those piles of destruction that are all that is left of people's hopes and dreams, and I wonder how many lives have disappeared as their houses blew away. One official has said there will be no accurate count of the dead and missing until someone goes street by street and tries to locate each person who once lived there.

We all heard the pre-storm bravado from those who refused to evacuate, the voices of those who said no monster storm was going to drive them from their homes. Two days later those same people have confessed that they made the most stupid decision of their lives in staying behind. They at least were able to speak. What of the missing whose voices are lost?

The lesson? Nature is a force so powerful that we puny humans cannot resist her at her worst. It is hard for me to imagine a storm the size of Texas; harder still to see the devastation. It is unsettling to see the occasional building that still stands, despite the loss of all its neighbors, to hear of the man plucked from a tree where Ike tossed him, the other washed through waters shared with venomous creatures. What kind of storm is this?

I have sat in awe with the Book of Job these days and reread Chapters 38 and 39. With Job I have admitted: "I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once... but will proceed no further."

It will be months before things return to normal in Galveston and Houston, but is normal only water, electricity and municipal services? How long will it be before trees grow again, before neighbor greets neighbor, before it is possible for people to stroll those scarred beaches?

No wonder our biblical ancestors avoided the seacoast and built their cities inland. They could not control its "proud waves," and so they lived at a respectful distance.

We can build weapons of mass destruction. We cannot control a hurricane. I remain in awe and prayer.