Homes lost; businesses gone; babies torn out of the arms of mothers; parents washed away in torrents... For some, lives have been ruined. For many, life has been put on hold, at the very least... We are by now, quite familiar with the images and stories of the flooding in Queensland of the past week, and underneath the many questions we have about this natural disaster is one question really - "Why?"...
In the Old Testament of the Bible, people saw everything as ultimately being of God's doing; as part of God's plan that He was working out. Natural disasters were seen as judgements from God for some lack of fidelity or the general wrong-doing of a people. "Why is this happening?", people would ask. "We are being judged for our wrongdoing." would come the reply. As our scientific knowledge has grown, we don't see this view expressed as robustly as we once did, but it is still out there...
Even if God is not doing something deliberate by sending a flood to devastate a community, surely if God is GOD, He might consider doing something about stopping or diverting the flood waters, mightn't He...? "Why is this happening?" people ask. "God doesn't care, is powerless to help, or isn't really there." comes the reply. God is seen as distant, uncaring, impotent and maybe even just plan evil. In the existential sense, we are alone in this...
If God is not there, then we are still left with the questions of "Why?" We can strip the whole event of any meaning and talk about La Nina, flood plains, flood mitigation levels and dam management, and while there are concrete answers there to be found to our questions, they don't completely satisfy the yearning behind them. Our hearts still twitch for a deeper answer; for some meaning to the events and their consequences. We still want to know, "Why? Why? Why?"...
On one level, the answers to the question of "Why?" seem beyond our reach. We may never fully appreciate "Why?" such things happen. But at another level, people seem to have instinctively found a response that is fitting for the moment...
Q - "Why?"
A - 7000 volunteers lined up on Saturday to help strangers across the city - more than the Brisbane City Council could handle...
Q - "Why?"
A - Lines of people, neck deep in water, removing precious possessions to higher ground for strangers, at risk of injury and sickness...
Q - "Why?"
A - Countless stories of people risking their own lives to help strangers or to reduce future life-threatening risks to others...
Q - "Why?"
A - The lady who turned up to New Farm the other day with a plate of muffins for the volunteers working in that unit complex...
You know what I'm talking about. You've seen and heard all the stories... The best answer to the sometimes sob-ridden question of "Why?" has been presented over and over in the past week. There will be plenty of time to discuss all the other stuff over a beer later on...when all that smelly mud has been cleaned up...
Shalom
Steve
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