Oddly enough, destruction and healing are sometimes linked together. The mighty forces of nature – forest fires, volcanos, earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis, floods, and hurricanes – can be so devastating that affected areas are often unrecognizable afterward. Yet, paradoxically, these same forces are sometimes willing accomplices in nature’s noble healing process. Think of the Nile River, whose annual flooding ravaged villages on its banks for centuries, but which also left behind new deposits of silt and topsoil, which in turn yielded life-giving crops. Shakespeare spoke eloquently of this phenomenon as “the disturbances that nature works, and of her cures.”

What life hurts, nature heals. Sometimes.