Reader Mail
Our Dynamic Universe
God, man, and the tsunami. Checkpoint charlies. Torture and other atrocities. Sontag farewell. Atticus Finch in Hollywood. Plus much more.
p>
BEFORE THE FALL
br>
Re: George Neumayr’s
The Great
Flood
:
/p>
Thank you, George Neumayr, for your “exegesis” of the disaster in south Asia. Much of it is a timely counter-balance to recent journalistic hand-wringing-verging-on-loss-of-or-questioning-of-faith:
In God, His Wisdom, His Mercy. I have seen such wavering even among conservative commentators, as at National Review Online. How can this be?
The tsunami and its after-effects are indeed horrific, shocking, even too much to bear — yet deceptive. In a certain way, once again we are gulled by the media. The earth — or Mr. Neumayr’s “dynamic universe” — has always been, and always will be fraught or riven with natural disasters. The rub is that never before have so many people lived on the planet, meaning that never before have so many people been in harm’s way, meaning that never before can so many people die in one disaster. A further rub is that never before have we had the ability to see such a horrific event as this one play out almost before our own eyes, in color, with minute-by-minute tallies of the deaths, the destruction, the aggrieved.
If a massive disaster such as this causes one to question God, logically any such event, regardless of numbers involved, must provoke doubts. If the loss of 150,000 innocents does it, does the loss of 150 do it as well? Or 15? Why not? And then, why not only one victim? And if the “untimely” loss of one innocent provokes the questioning, what is it that we expect? A comfortable, problem-free ride through to our life’s expectancy or longer, then an easy drifting away into nothingness?
p>Life is not like this; the earth is not like this. If we accept, with Hamlet, that “there is a certain providence in the fall of a sparrow,” then we must also accept that there is a certain providence in the fall of 150,000 sparrows, however horrific this may seem to us. We are indeed called to prayer for the souls of the deceased, and to prayer and compassion for the survivors. What I pray for as well is that, among the 150,000 dead, there were more than just a few who knew, with Hamlet, that “the readiness is all.” br> — Jeffrey S. Erickson br> Davidson, North Carolina /p>
