Answer me this...

Listening to the radio the other day I heard an interview with Mr. Jim Gulley, a Colorado resident and missionary who happened to be in Haiti at the time of the earthquake last month.  After more than two days without food or water, he was rescued from the rubble that once was the Hotel Montana.  When the interviewer asked Mr. Gulley what one thing he is taking from or would remember from this experience, Mr. Gulley quietly and respectfully reflected and said that while "it's easy to spout platitudes, about, you know, God saved my life, well he didn't save the life of my two colleagues."  He couldn't answer, from a theological perspective, the question of why he was fortunate while his coworkers and thousands of Haitians were not.  Of course, I wouldn't expect him to be able to answer that question.

I found a local newspaper that also was covering Mr. Gulley's story and in it was a quote attributed to the survivor.   Apparently, a large receptionist desk in the hotel lobby had prevented slabs of concrete and beams from crushing Gulley on the floor. To quote Gulley, "It was totally black and very dusty, but that desk saved our lives." One answer to why Mr. Gulley is alive may be that desk.  Pure luck or god's divine providence?  To the latter, I say, hell no, but let me continue.

From my perspective,  Mr. Gulley's story is inspiring and intriguing.  I appreciate the gracious humility of Mr. Gulley, grappling with the question of his own survival,  while his coworkers and thousands of others were not so lucky.   He provided no soft, easy answers.  He had no answers to why he lived while others perished.  

A basic question raised in response to a tragedy such as the earthquake in Haiti is "Why?"   By asking the question, is there some hope that an answer will be given to right the wrong or bring back the loss of a loved one?  Does someone or something owe an answer?  If there was an answer, what would it be?

Some folks only answer the why questions of life or death with some canned or superstitious story. We all know people who have pat answers for everything. Consider the jester of pat answers, Mr. Pat Robertson himself.  Robertson, as we all surely know by now, takes answering the why questions to the idiot extreme.  He didn't fail us when he concluded that the earthquake in Haiti was the result of the Haitian's "pact with the devil."  The Haitians were cursed.   How easy, how convenient Mr. Robertson.  How insulting!  His bs is pure evil!

As I've reflected on this topic over the past week, I have struggled in writing down my thoughts.  I don't have any answers nor do I expect any.  I don't think anyone or anything owes an answer.  Things just are.  Earthquakes happen.  However, IF there were to be a god, and to my best understanding and reasoning there is not, how capricious, how callous and cruel this god must be to cause, through the design of the world, the unspeakable loss and suffering of anyone or anything.

I get tired and am repulsed by the common and trite responses to tragedy or the answers given to people faced with loss.  These answers are generally offered to console, however, I consider them to be nothing less than odious and they do nothing except cheapen the ultimate price that was paid.  "There's a reason for everything." "It's god's will."  "They are in a better place now."  "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  "There but for the grace of god go I." "We can't know the mind of god." "Just pray about it."   Some may say that the desk was god's way of saving Mr. Gulley for a greater purpose.  "His work on this earth is not yet done," some may offer.  I'm sure I missed some examples, but I think you get the point.

The horrific and unfathomable loss of life in Haiti can never be reclaimed.  Those who remain, the ones who have lost the little of everything they ever had may indeed have questions.  They may even demand answers.  I argue that the only decent, just, and respectful answers we may offer them or anyone facing loss for that matter, will not come from ancient superstitions circulated by empty words or catch phrases but it will come in the giving of our time, our money, our hands to labor with them to rebuild and our arms reaching out to embrace them during a time of utter devastation.