METEOROLOGICAL BEINGS. Religious people of very different times and cultures have tended to "humanize" meteorological phenomena by telling stories about the displays of celestial power and fruitfulness they witnessed, converting those events into elements of a sacred narrative intended to explain how the world and humankind have come to be the way they are. The experience of life in a properly religious world differs radically from our experience of life today. For one thing, it makes no distinction between the natural and human realms. Whereas for us a storm is invariably an "it," the storm has been much more a "thou" for the better part of human history. It is not the storm that religious people have worshiped but the sacred power, will, and qualities that are somehow revealed there, although it would be quite incorrect to speak of the "personification" of inanimate nature or, for...