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Good morning!
Happy New Year! I hope that it was and is happy.
I had intended to deliver a New Year’s sermon today, but world events have forced me to change that plan.
Our human family has suffered a terrible event. Vast numbers are dead and vast numbers more are in danger.
I have been dismayed by some of media coverage of this tragedy, the coverage where the main focus in on the tourist resort areas, as if the tourists are somehow more important than local people. I also was disturbed by one story out of Malaysia that at one of the shelters, the tourists were inside with cots and phones and Internet access while local people sleep outside without blankets or food and water. I am saddened by the fact that even in the midst of such tragedy we maintain our differences and distinctions.
My reaction as the story grew was one of horror, shock and numbness. Somehow, when the numbers reach fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and one hundred and fifty thousand, they become incomprehensible. An additional fifty thousand doesn’t seem to matter, but of course, it does. But my brain seems unable to grasp the enormity and so it seems to shut down against the information.
Since one hundred thousand is an incomprehensible number, we tend to focus on individual stories.
I think of the mother holding on to her three-year old and her five-year old and telling herself she cannot save both so she must let go of one. She let go of the five-year old thinking that he was older and so perhaps could swim. She did ask another woman to take him, but still, letting go…
That story ended positively in that the family was reunited. But I cannot help but think about how that event will affect that family, and the five-year old’s sense of safety and of life and of the safety provided by his parents.
I also think of the story of the people interviewed on television who were in a yacht in the waters off Indonesia. There were a number of boats around them when the Tsunami struck, and while they were able to ride out the wave, people in smaller boats were swamped. They immediately began to pull people out of the water, but as they looked around they realized that people in other yachts were standing off, not coming in to help with the rescue. They just sat and watched.
This event raises questions, religious questions.
I was speaking to some the other night and he said—and I hope you will hear in this not something meant to be funny, because it was not; but rather a statement of cynical despair. He said, the clear lesson from this is that we have to get back to the practice of sacrificing virgins; because if the gods are so vindictive and unpredictable there is nothing else to do.
That of course is the Old Pagan religious thought. The gods have done this because they are angry, we must appease them.
I spent much of my time over the last week reading various religious responses to what has happened. And because the victims are from so many different religious backgrounds, there are many attempts by religious people to make sense of what has happened. Each of these is only a partial synopsis of belief, but I offer several different explanations.
In Hinduism life is a cycle of birth, death, rebirth. The ultimate goal is escape from Samsara (the wheel of life) In meantime, Karma from previous acts in previous lives decides our current life. In traditional Hinduism those who suffer did something in the past for which they now pay.
In 1934 there was a major earthquake in the Indian state of Gujarat, and Mahatma Gandhi claimed that this was punishment form God for the Indian practice of untouchability. That is not the only Hindu view. Rabindrinath Tagore scolded Gandhi for “promoting irrational and superstitious thinking”. But it clearly is one strand of Hindu thought.
A more positive view might be that those who have suffered will gain future rewards.
But I find that response less than adequate. One problem with it is that it is a form of blaming the victim. It can allow one to ignore the needs of the victims because, after all, they deserve whatever is happening to them.
In Buddhism, life IS suffering. As in Hinduism, the goal is escape. One approach in Buddhism is that we ought to let this urge us on towards seeking nirvana. Meanwhile, we ought to respond with compassion for the suffering of the dead and survivors.
I find that more suiting to my needs, especially the compassion part of it. And yet, it does not satisfy.
The Abrahamic faith traditions have, I think, a somewhat more difficult position. There is only one God, the creator God, the god who created everything. So did god plan or design for this to happen?
There are several answers:
Satan rules this world, so it was Satan’s doing, not God’s.
The problem with that thinking is that, within the tradition, God gave this world to Satan, so God knew this would be part of plan; therefore God would have allowed this to happen. God remains ultimately the source and cause.
Another response is that this is God’s vengeance; people have done something wrong, God has punished them for it.
But we stand in the Universalist tradition that believes in a loving, merciful, forgiving God. And what did those babies do to deserve this? Do they, perhaps, deserve to suffer for the acts of their parents? What kind of God is that?
Another approach says that God did this as a warning to humanity to change its ways. That is an even worse explanation than the previous one. God killed those babies to persuade me to repent? That is awful. And unacceptable.
Some say God established the earth, which includes earthquakes and tidal waves. No vengeance or punishment is intended by what has happened. God’s love is in the midst of this tragedy, is present to each who suffers.
That is more comforting, but still not good enough. An all-powerful God has still allowed this to happen—had known that it would. And yet that God just sat by and watched, like the people in the yachts that would not turn in to help those drowning in the water. I expect more from people than that, so I expect more from a God than that.
Then there is the commonly held out response that God’s plan too grand for us to fathom or question. To me, this is an eloquent, high-level non-answer. It says nothing.
Non-theistic humanists respond largely like this: Life is, catastrophes happen. There is no intent, no anger, just circumstances. We humans must do our best to accept what has happened, to cope with the aftermath—including providing aid—and to do our best to avoid the same in the future. For example, we must establish worldwide tsunami warning systems.
But that, too, feels as though it falls short for me.
One writer who had his column posted on both a Jewish and a Buddhist website stated that focusing on “Why?” removes our attention from where it belongs—on those who have died, those who have suffered loss, and on those who now face death from thirst, starvation and illness.
Almost ten years ago, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, I said that if one seeks God one should not look in the bottom of the crater left by the explosion; rather, one should look in the hearts of those who rushed to the scene of the devastation to give help to the wounded.
If there is a God, he lives in the heart of those who risked their own lives to pull survivors from the rubble and floodwaters and open seas. If there is a Goddess, she lives in the hearts of those who bring medical care, food and water, blankets and tents to the survivors. If there is a divinity, it lives in the heart of each person who felt shock or horror, who felt empathy or compassion, who wept tears of sorrow for suffering humanity.
Whether that is merely the common spirit of humankind, is the Divine within, or is the human soul growing into Divinity, our response to such a tragedy is a living example of what should be in a world ruled by divine justice.
The United States has been criticized for responding too slowly to this tragedy, and with too little.
In response, the administration has stated that we are a very generous nation. And Secretary of State Powell has said that we do not want to get into a bidding war on foreign aid. Why not?!
Throughout the majority of my lifetime, this nation was involved in a competition with the Soviet Union to see who could build the most weapons of mass destruction. It was a competition in which the side that was “winning” was deemed to be the side that could make the rubble bounce one more time than the other side. It was a massive waste of human resources and financial resources.
Why not engage in a competition to see which nation can do the most to end human suffering?
And if some money is wasted along the way, I don’t care. If every human being ends up with enough food and water and clothing and shelter and medical care, I don’t care if some of the money is wasted. It would be nothing compared to the amount of money we wasted during the cold war.
President Bush has said that we are the largest foreign aid donor in terms of dollars, and he is right. But I read to you from a report to congress dated April 15, 2004 that I downloaded from the website of the United States Department of State:
“The United States is the largest international economic aid donor in dollar terms but is the smallest contributor among the major donor governments when calculated as a percent of gross national income.”
Of the twenty two wealthiest nations, we rank twenty second in giving when judged by gross national income. We are not as generous as we tell ourselves.
I return to other topics:
The search for the answer to the question “Why?” is the search for meaning. Perhaps the only meaning to this event is the meaning we give it over time.
I have one hope—that our response to this event this will build a unity of a kind not seen before.
In most previous or ongoing tragedies—Darfur, Kosovo, Rwanda, the Congo—human conflict created the problem and, because of that fact, there have been different points of view on who and what has caused the suffering and therefore on how to end it.
In the case of this tragedy, everyone recognizes that those who are suffering are innocent victims. It is being viewed as a disaster calling for a global response.
We as a people, the people of the world, have now both a task and a possibility. We have the opportunity to unite in good works, to unite in service, to unite in rebuilding. If we seize that opportunity, and do so in the right way, we can begin to build a new and better global community, one of mutual aid, mutual nurture, mutual caring. A world in which the poor are as important as the wealthy, a world in which the Indonesian refugee is as important as the Italian tourist, a world in which the Somali orphan is as important as the Swedish orphan.
If we open our eyes, raise our vision, widen our view, this may be one building block in a new global community.
If that occurs, then the deaths that have happened, horrifying and tragic though they remain, will not have been in vain because they will have served a higher cause.
If we miss this opportunity, if we fail to use this to expand our hearts and our sense of connection, then their deaths will remain mere sad stories of loss.
We can give meaning to their deaths, or we can quickly return to the state of division and difference that has always been part of the real tragedy of human existence.
May we choose wisely, may we choose kindly, may we choose divinely.
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