When God is All You Have...

A beautiful reflection from A Concord Pastor today:

A snip

Just a few minutes ago, I saw video of hundreds of Haitians processing through the streets of Port au Prince singing hymns and clapping their hands. The commentator mentioned that all through the night you could hear groups of people throughout the city gathering and singing together...

When God is all you have, you do not let go of your faith...

The faithful Haitian people are human beings. This week we've seen them bleed and die; we've heard their cries of anguish, their weeping over the loss of loved ones; we've seen them beg for something to eat, something to drink, for a place to go... but they know in Jesus a God who chose to suffer with his people and they believe their God is with them...

When God is all you have, you do not let go of your faith...

Don't for a moment think that I'm trying to "spiritualize" the plight of Haitians this week. Their loss and pain are real, as real as their faith in God -and conversely- their faith in God is real, as real as their loss and pain.

If anything, we may be the ones in need of a deeper spirituality in the face of this tragedy.

True. I keep thinking to myself, "What if this happened here?" Would our churches fill much as they did on Sept 12, 2001 the day after that horrifying day. Would we be able to awake to the possibility that God needs us and loves us and quite often we are too blind to notice until something terrible happens?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying this quake or any future natural or man-made disaster is an intentional wake up call from God. But perhaps, it might serve as a wake up call to us who often forget about faith and who languish in the security of the United States. Other people need us and our gifts and often we are too busy with our own mundane affairs to care.

Can we be the overflowing gift to Haiti with our own excess? I think we can. We simply have to want to become what it is that we have received.

Living with Uncertainty - A Haitian Young Adult Reflects:

Mirlande Jeanlouis from BustedHalo reflects on the Haitian earthquake where she has several family members in more than precarious positions. This was one of the more honest reflections I've read on the disaster and in a young adult world where certainty often reigns supreme, her experience is quite harrowing.

Last September my mother returned to Haiti after a seven-year absence from her home country. It was a brief trip involving minor family matters and she came back telling us how amazed she was at the economic growth she had seen. Many families had personal computers or cell phones. Some of the small villages had better roads and bridges. After the tragic events there this past week the country my mother visited just a few short months ago no longer exists. In the wake of the earthquake I keep thinking of the “what if’s:” What if my mother had traveled last week instead? What if I had gone to visit her? What if my sister had finally found the money to spend Christmas, New Year’s in Port-au-Prince? The “what if’s” are choking my family right now. Since Tuesday we don’t even know how sad to be.

There is a distinct difference between mourning for a country and mourning for a beloved niece or cousin, and in my family’s New York City home we’ve been vacillating between both of those states. My father, an emotional guy by nature, started crying Wednesday morning. We got an e-mail about the village he grew up in; it had a church with a kindergarten attached. Both structures collapsed killing everyone inside. His aunt with lung cancer was pulled out of the rubble of her home, with her life and not much else. My mother has a cousin and sister living in Port-au-Prince that she speaks to at least once a week. Both women have several children. She hasn’t heard anything. Over the past week my mother, who is a quiet person, has become even more silent. My siblings and I are worried.

Meanwhile I’m supposed to be studying for a Neurology exam, working at my school’s library and finding bloggers for “Busted Borders.” Instead I’ve been watching CNN, MSNBC and the local news in hopes to see someone we know in the footage of a ruined hospital—it hasn’t happened. Somehow, I am supposed to be living life as if someone I know is not sleeping on the street petrified of being in a building. I don’t know how to do that.

I am supposed to be living life as if someone I know is not sleeping on the street terrified of being in a building. Is it possible to be positive with such uncertainty?
Is it possible to be positive with such uncertainty? In my 24 years of life I have had an abundance of control over what happens. If I studied hard I got good grades. If I worked I got better pay or a promotion. If I gave someone respect, usually respect was given to me in return. Powerlessness is not a feeling I am used to.

Say a prayer for Mirlande's family, as I am tonight. Read the rest of her article on BustedHalo.com® and then pray for young adults who can add another tragic event to the myriad of tragedies that have marked their young lives.

Why is there suffering?

Our buddy Paul Snatchko had great and insightful words yesterday. So a wave o' the cap over to him.

Considering the tragedy that has taken place in Haiti, the final verse of the Psalm at Mass today stings:

“Why do you hide your face,
forgetting our woe and our oppression?
For our souls are bowed down to the dust,
our bodies are pressed to the earth.”

Why?

It’s the question of the day.

Why does God permit the earth to rumble beneath us?

Why did God permit the earth to move under Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas?

And, frankly, the most truthful answer is that we simply do not know.

I believe in an all-powerful God. I do not know his will. I do not know why he permits his creation to suffer.

Lord, why do your pilgrim people face so many obstacles along the journey?

But, this I do know: no purpose is served by claiming that natural disasters are the reaction of a vengeful God. No purpose is served by asserting that our Creator singles out certain peoples for punishment because of the supposed deeds of their ancestors.

That indeed is a question that has no answer, much as Karl Rahner would say that God Himself is that same unanswerable question.

Why God permits such suffering in the world is indeed the big question that plagues us and has for centuries, perhaps for all time. This Sunday we will talk about the wedding feast at Cana--the first of Jesus' signs. And while some think that this may be a negative sign of God's wrath, I cannot allow myself to think that God would serve such a purpose.

Life is messy and nobody knows that better than Jesus. He knows of our suffering and he experienced it. Our God of suffering lives today amongst the families and friends who mourn all those who have passed. May we be bold enough to allow ourselves to suffer with the Haitian people, to feel their pain and to transform that pain into redemption--even in some small way.

We love the Haitian people and feel for their needs. The bigger question than "Why does God allow such tragedy to happen?" should be even more obvious to us. I think God asks us the same question:

Why do YOU allow such suffering to happen?

When radio hosts say that we've already paid for the Haitian relief with our taxes, we should start asking if we are all really committed to the human condition. And more importantly, what are we going to do about it?