Cody
Williams
Tsunamis, Pogroms & Heartache
Recently I’ve read New York Times columnists and heard CNN pundits question the faithful as to why ‘a just and loving God’ would allow death and destruction to take place on the scale that it did in southern Asia on December 26th 2004.
The earthquake and resulting tidal wave there killed over 150,000 people, leaving children orphaned and parents childless. This ‘natural’ disaster swept the earth there clean of people, their homes and the communities in which they lived, in some cases leaving only trees and cement foundations. Some areas were so devastated photos taken of them from an airplane flyover look as if the land had never been inhabited by man. Only vegetation and wild life remained. Entire families of sun bathing vacationers from all over the globe were simply washed off the land in into the sea, along with beach chairs, swank café furniture, cars, city buses and the future plans of nations.
Almost predictable, the pious lay blame. One Islamic cleric sited rampant homosexuality and other moral misconduct for what he called God’s wrath enacted against the eleven hardest hit countries. He was not alone. Undoubtedly countless Christian ministers too prophesy of the carnage a warning from God for mankind to change our wicked ways before an even greater Armageddon befalls us. “Repent. The end is near,” they shout.
The End, again, really?
Poor wanton and feeble man, always seeks answers and falls short.
I would never be so trite as to say here as some have, “the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.” That language does nothing for those left with broken hearts, grieving and homeless trying desperately to rebuild.
I’m, however, reminded of an Eastern proverb I read once that has stuck with me in time of great loss, the type of loss we will always have:
“We are to have what we have, honors, degrees, possessions, family, friends, loves and faculties, as if they were on loan to us, and not given.”
It’s almost funny how man has decided that dying is a bad thing as opposed to being born, or that youth is a greater prize than age. Man has decided that if we play by certain rules that we should escape loss, heartache, misery or pain. Large pharmaceutical companies make great profits and their executives get rich selling drugs that ease the pain of life, or more accurately, numb us to life’s realities. Depression, alienation and anxiety can all be eliminated by taking a regimen of pills daily. And youth too can be prolonged by following certain diets and exercises. Yes, they say, death can be stalled by the advances of modern medicine.
Should all of these attempts to enhance and prolong life fail our shamans, our clerics tell us that if we live ‘right,’ don’t worry, because after death we go on to heaven, the land of milk and honey where the streets are paved with gold and pearls, rubies hang from trees, loved ones never age, we will never get sick and the perfect life that eludes us on earth awaits and will last for eternity.
Is it any wonder that the shamans take in even more money than the drug companies do?
We cling desperately to that which by design we must invariably let go – youth, love, life.
The birds, elephants, dogs, monkeys and other wildlife that to most observers picked up certain cues from nature and avoided the catastrophic consequence that befell humans following the earth’s biggest quake in half a century seem to not spend much time mourning their loses. They seem to carrying on right where December 25th found them, while man laments and questions God. It appears that in the most devastated areas trees survived, while cars and posh resorts were washed out to sea.
It is the temporal, which we so desperately try to hold on to, and in doing so bring upon ourselves so much angst and heartache. That too what is temporal, it would seem, has never been important to God. And we are far better off when we adjust our understanding of the universe to its creator, rather than persuading others to believe that the creator should be more like us and cater to our lustful demands for that which is unnatural – eternal gratification.
For sure, the Universe has even greater catastrophes in store for mankind, demonstrating just how powerless we are when matched against the forces that formed it.
It’s not that the Universe is ordered by an uncaring God. It is that, what our creator cares deeply about is not what we so desperately cling to – our possessions: that which can so easily be washed out to sea.
© Cody Williams 2004
Send Feedback
Send Feedback