Ponderings over disasters

In the midst of the raging storm and surging seas erupting from Hurricane Sandy, we ponder as we do when natural disasters once again strike us. In the wake of the havoc that Sandy caused in the heavily populated northeast of the United States how do we make sense of it all. Atlantic City is enriched and survives by its casinos and its mayor Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford told CNN: 

"When Mother Nature sends her wrath your way, we're at her mercy, and so all we can do is stay prayerful and do the best that we can"

But how do we pray in such tragic times? Who do we pray to? We are used to believe in the All Powerful God. It is hard to reconcile such a God in disasters. The toll of suffering humanity is beyond human comprehension. The destructive force paralyzes the bustling busiest city of New York in the world. Mercilessly damage is done to saints and sinners, innocent and the evil. Cities are  submerged by the waters and all economic activity ceases.

The Divine whom we call God is affirmed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth. The earth and its environment is but a tiny speck in this vast universe. We would imagine that this Creator can stop the destruction but as in all natural disasters God did not. On the contrary it is regarded as an act of God. But how do we reconcile God's action or inaction with such widespread destruction.

As we face this harsh reality, how real is our God? Too readily we say that it is God's punishment but that is so arbitrary for it affects those who do not deserve it and it is an overkill to those who have done wrong. God is not a cruel Judge or a Destroyer. Once again we are called to reconcile what we believe about the loving and powerful Creator with the disasters that we experience around us from time to time.

It has been observed that out of love for created beings the Creator has placed self-limitation of power. The Creation is alive and the process is not completed. It is still evolving and anti-creative forces are at work. Freedom is gifted to all created living beings. We are not robots programmed to act in a determined way. Freedom is integral to us and the exercise of freedom must necessarily be with responsibility. Otherwise we have to deal with disasters.
 

Do we over-populate the world, do we exhaust earth's resources, do we get into community conflict? Do we conserve or destroy, do we care or ignore, do we compete or co-operate? There is a long list of responsible activities that we ignore at our peril.

In our created environment we have a web of interactions and inter-relationships. Intentionally and unintentionally in the exercise of freedom we cause disruptions to the order. The Creator cannot intervene to stop the effect of our actions. There is much around us that is mysterious waiting to be unravelled. But when we do understand and work along with the order that exists, we can send a man to the moon and dock a craft in the station out in space. The Creator patiently waits for life to discover its secrets and exist in harmony with them.

Meanwhile we do not have straight forward easy answers to natural disasters. Our faith does not protect or prevent us from the whirlpool of suffering. The Creator stands with us and shares our pain and our grief.
 
We resort to prayer for the understanding that we are perpetrators or victims of anti-creative forces and we must align ourselves with the creative forces for the shaping of a safer and better future for all. The road that we travel together will be littered with the debris of disasters. When we learn our lessons of history and understand partially this mysterious life on this planet earth we will do better. Such a faith allow us to hope in spite of our pain when we face the disasters in our lives.