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A flooded road is seen during the passage of Hurricane Fiona in Villa Blanca, Puerto Rico, on Sunday. Photo: Jose Rodriguez/AFP via Getty Images |
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Ukrainian soldiers collect unexploded shells after fighting with Russian raiding group in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/ Getty Images |
The natural disaster that is Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico recently showed us once again the devastation that is often visited upon the human community. Now Ian is bearing down on Florida. Many still remember the tragedy that New Orleans faced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005.
The following is an article I wrote which appeared as a guest editorial in The Birmingham News in 2005. I posted a version of this essay after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and I re-visit it here as a reminder of one way we find hope when tragedy strikes. Frankl's book helped to reorient my thinking years ago. His words carried weight since they were born out of his internment in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII.
Finding Hope After Katrina
by
Charles Kinnaird
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life.
We had to learn… that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but
rather what life expected from us.
~ Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning
Christianity has a problem that arises from three basic precepts:
1. God is
all-powerful and all-knowing;
2. God is loving
and good; and
3. Evil is real.
This is a recipe for dissonance. In two thousand years, these theological
concepts have never been reconciled nor have they been abandoned. I am in no
position to try to debunk any of these three notions, but I am in a position to
feel the ache and the loss for words in response to that perennial question,
“How could a loving God allow such devastation and loss of innocent life?”
Hurricane Katrina is the latest tragic event that causes many to ask, is there
really a God out there, or is this just a barren, meaningless universe? It
has even prompted some to claim that God is punishing sinners. Preachers and
theologians have always felt the tension of trying to communicate faith and
hope to people in light of intellectual honesty and trying times. Harold
Kushner’s popular book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, managed to
affirm that God is a loving God and that evil is certainly real while
rejecting the idea that God is really all-powerful. Some religions and sects
will question whether evil is real, or just an illusion in order to explain the
presence of suffering and evil. Many preachers like to remind us of the fact that
someone brought sin into the world, and don’t forget that old chestnut of free
will. Theology likes to create nice tidy boxes to put things in, but the
problem is that life is not nice and tidy.
It would be a cruel understatement to say that Katrina was an untidy incident.
I’ll be honest, for days I tried to avoid the emotional impact. I tried to keep
some distance as I viewed the news reports. Then the reality began to hit, and
along with it, the tears that one tries to fight back, the deep sighs, the heaviness
that weighs upon the chest and the brow. There came inevitable shock and the
sorrow of so much devastation. I returned to a book that I had found very
helpful when I first read it many years ago. Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s
Search for Meaning came out of his experiences in a Nazi concentration
camp during World War II. His was the only voice I could think of that might be
appropriate to listen to in the wake of our current storm. The core of that
book for me was a passage close to the middle of the work which is quoted
above. Frankl goes on to say, “We needed to stop asking about the meaning of
life, and instead start thinking of ourselves as those who were being
questioned by life – daily and hourly.”
If we are being questioned by life, what is our response? Here are some things I heard in the week following the storm:
- I heard anger that response was so slow.
- I heard outrage that the poor, the handicapped and the needy were being overlooked and neglected.
- I saw bitter tears over the loss of life and the suffering of children.
- I saw responses from some individuals who were determined to do whatever they could to help.
- I heard scorn heaped upon the comfortable wealthy bureaucrats in Washington who seemed literally unmoved by the massive suffering.
When I read the words of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets, God is described by these very same responses.
I cannot put this into a tidy box that will resolve all questions and ease the
tensions of living, but I can say that in the midst of the chaos and horror
that followed Katrina, I saw and heard God in our midst. I saw God in your face
and heard God in your voice when the sorrow and outrage was expressed. As real
people began to move to care for the evacuees by offering help, refuge, and
hope, I took heart. There were people showing great care for life, even lending
aid to pets that were displaced. I saw how we respond when we are questioned by
life, and that response gives me hope in the midst of tragedy.
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