How Do We Respond when Questioned by Life?

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

Ukrainian soldiers collect unexploded shells after fighting with

Russian raiding group in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/ Getty Images

Life is pressing us at every turn, it seems. We have natural disasters with hurricanes from Alaska to Puerto Rico, a distressing war in Ukraine, and the troubling rise of fascism in the U.S.

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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Flashback: Hope in the Midst of Trajedy

While I'm involved in another project, I am re-posting some of my favorite essays. This essay was originally a guest editorial in the Sunday edition of The Birmingham News (October 30, 2005). It was posted on the blog on August 31, 2010, five years after Hurricane Katrina. 

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, many lives were disrupted and displaced. Our commonly used superlatives paled in our attempts to describe that event. I re-visit it here today as a reminder of one way we find hope when tragedy strikes.

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

The Problem of Evil

Christianity has a problem that arises from three basic precepts:

·        God is all-powerful and all-knowing

·        God is loving and good

·        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 is 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.

Working Through the Sorrow

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.”

Responding to Life’s Questions

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.


-

After the Calamity

A neighborhood in  Oklahoma obliterated by a tornado (CNN photo)

When calamity strikes, especially in the case of natural disasters as in the recent terrible tornadoes that struck Oklahoma, there will be many survivors thanking God that their lives were spared.  Some will even use such an occasion to “give God the glory” for their deliverance.  Others are uncomfortable with such God-talk in the wake of tragedy. Sometimes thanking God even may be an irreverent response. 

As for "giving God the glory," I can understand the qualms some may have with that. Sometimes I think we can be too fast and glib with evoking the name of the Lord. On the other hand, I can understand it from a gut level. There are those times when things occur that seem to be beyond us. We feel that we have been visited by grace or rescued by a Higher Power.  Someone feels intuitively that this was beyond his or her own abilities to accomplish or to orchestrate – it must have been the hand of God. That is an understandable gut reaction.

However, if we think about it, it can get more complicated. “God took me off the streets when I was down and out” – but then why did God leave others on the street?  “God restored my health” – I am always ready to rejoice in this one, but what about others whose health was not restored?  It is natural in wartime, I suppose, for soldiers to feel that God gave them a victory when the outcome had looked bleak – but what about those on the other side who prayed and died? What about all the truly god-fearing people who come upon misfortune?

I believe that God is always with us in the process, and if things are good, we can be grateful. If things are difficult and if failure and defeat rule the day, God walks through the valley with us (and we can still be grateful). The problem comes if you start thinking that God is rewarding or punishing. Things just happen. Sometimes, as Viktor Frankl says in his book,  Man’s Search for Meaning,  life is asking questions of us – how will we respond?

Rick Bragg related an amusing story in his book All Over but the Shoutin'.  He tells of getting this fast convertible when he was in high school. He wrecked it while driving 100 MPH, flattened it, and walked away unhurt. The man driving the wrecker said “The Lord was ridin’ with you, boy!” His Uncle Ed said the same thing, “The Lord was with you.” Rick Bragg said that with everyone saying that, he expected the local newspaper, The Anniston Star, to run a headline, “LORD RIDES WITH BOY, WRECKS ANYWAY.”



*

Hope in the Midst of Tragedy

Five years after hurricane Katrina struck, many in the media are revisiting New Orleans and other places in the gulf devastated the storm (and in the case of New Orleans, devastated by faults within the levy system that gave way). Successes are celebrated as well as questions of why has more not been done. The following is an article I wrote which appeared as a guest editorial in The Birmingham News five years ago. I posted a version of this essay after the earthquake in Haiti and I re-visit it here as a reminder of one way we find hope when tragedy strikes.

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 is 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.


*

Haiti in the Aftermath

I am still at the numb stage. I have difficulty watching those images om TV from Haiti after that 7.0 earthquake devastated the country. I am glad that there are already relief agencies beginning to help. So much tragedy elicits questions. The following essay of mine was run in The Birmingham News as a guest editorial after Hurrican Katrina hit in New Orleans. It is still the best way for me to make some sense out of tragedy.

Finding God's Face in Tragedy

“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 by mainstream Christianity. 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 the question, “How could a loving God allow such devastation and loss of innocent life?”

Hurricane Katrina was one of those tragic events that cause many to ask, is there really is a God out there, or is this just a barren, meaningless universe? 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. 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.

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.



***