Where is God at times like this?

Wow! The reports on the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina are unbelievable. I've been to New Orleans a number of times and I love that city. Now I wonder how long it will be before I am able to visit there again. I have friends who live there and were able to evacuate to Baton Rouge. They still got hit by the storm, but it was not as bad, and at least there they are above sea level.

I also have friends who live right on the beachfront in Biloxi. They decided to stay and "ride out" the storm. We have not been able to contact them...most likely their home was damaged badly, if not destroyed. So we are worried about them.

When natural disasters like this occur, people often want to ask why God let's things like this happen. And certainly the world has been through a lot this year - remember the Christmas Day tsunami in India and southeast Asia last winter. So that question about God is a tough one. Personally, I think it's the wrong question to ask. For me a better question is, "Where is (or was) God while this was all happening?"

In the Hebrew Scriptures Elijah looked for God in a great wind, an earthquake, and in fire. But where he found God was in silence (see 1 Kings 19:11-13). In other words, God was present all along but Elijah just didn't recognize it. You might say Elijah was looking for God in all the wrong places.

I have to admit that I usually forget that God continues to be with me providing support during the storms of my life, and I forget to look for him in the silence of my own heart at those times.

So learning from the story of Elijah, we can conclude that God was present in the midst of the hurricane, but the hurricane was not God, was not caused by God, and was not God's way of sending us any kind of message. Instead we must ask how God is present amid such power and destruction.

I don't believe God sends disasters to teach us lessons. Rather, disasters happen because we live in an imperfect and unpredictable world. It is a world that God has created and then given freedom to follow the laws of nature. That does not mean that God has now abandoned the world. But God has chosen not to force himself upon us. God calls us to himself, but leaves us free to answer or not; to seek his help or to try and rely solely upon our own limited resources.

Thus when "bad things happen to good people" I try to look for ways to turn those misfortunes into blessings. There's a good book (you must have known I was getting around to another good book!) called Blessing Life's Losses: Letting Go and Moving On by Joan Guntzelman (Liguori Publications, 2004). Here's a prayer the author offers that seems very appropriate for the current situation:

Living God, you have created the whole world as my home. Help me to find you here. Send your grace so that I may grieve over the loss of what home had been, let go of it, and know that I am never without a home in your love.

All I can add to that is "Amen."

Pilgrimage

I just returned from a long weekend with friends on a houseboat in another state. We take off, packed in a couple of vehicles with our gear and enough food for the weekend, and we drive for about 3 hours to the marina. Thus, the trek begins even before we reach the waterfront.

Several of my friends have gone on this adventure for years. But this was only my second trip. It is a wonderful break from the routine. It provides new scenery for awhile and the comeraderie is fun.

It has become a sort of annual end-of-summer pilgrimage for the group. For me it is a real blessing.

I came across a reflection on the concept of pilgrimage in a book called, Blessings of the Daily, by a contemporary monk named Brother Victor-Antoine. (He also happens to write cookbooks with reflections for each recipe.) Here is what he says about pilgrimage:

As we embark on pilgrimage, we must come to terms with the mystery of repentance....Repentance is not an easy task and is not always easy to talk about....We live in a world of pretension where we don't really believe ourselves to be sinners.

Repentance is the door to prayer. We need not go far to enter into it. All true prayer begins where we are. Reality is the place of the encounter, the place where God meets us. To start praying, to find God, we don't need to roam around the world. All we need is to enter into ourselves, to cry out in humble repentance, and we shall discover God there, in the midst of it all.

I find this reflection to be soothing and calming. I believe that both prayer and repentance require a degree of humility. And a good dash of humility is probably a good thing for all of us occasionally!

Dear Jesus Christ...

Still thinking about that comment on how Jesus would use a blog. Another friend has suggested that he would use it like a Dear Ann Landers or Dear Abby column to answer people's questions. Guess what - I found a book like that: Dear Padre, Questions Catholics Ask, by Thomas M. Santa. It's got answers to questions most of us probably wonder about but might not know how to ask in the right way.

For example, if you do a google search on the word "faith" you get led to over 54 million sites (in only 0.14 seconds, no less!). But page 148 of Dear Padre answers for you the simple question, What is Faith?

"Faith is the gift from God that enables us to see the world, the events, and the circumstances of our life in the way that God sees them."

I like that. Maybe Jesus just now used this blog.

What would Jesus do?

A comment received earlier today is a very interesting one to ponder. Someone wonders if Jesus were around today, how would he use a blog? The commenter specified that he was not asking IF Jesus would use blogs, but HOW he would use them.

That's really gotten me thinking - especially since I've just started this blog myself. Many religious groups are using all kinds of modern media to spread their message (and hopefully, when they do so, it's Jesus' message, not their own.) It's obviously an important tool in today's world, but like anything else, it can easily be mis-used.

We human beings are really good at mis-using things. There's a book I have called Come, Follow Me: The Commandments of Jesus. It's written by Anthony J. Gittins and published by Liguori Publications. In it, Gittins quotes from mid-ninteenth century author, A. H. Clough, who parodied the Ten Commandments according to what was modern at that time:

No graven images may be
worshipped, except currency.

Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive
officiously to keep alive.

Thou shalt not steal, an empty feat,
when it's so lucrative to cheat.

Do not commit adultery,
advantage rarely comes of it.

Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
approves all forms of competition.

A colleague of mine has suggested that if Jesus were alive today, he would use a blog to point out abuses in society and in government, much as Jesus did toward those who were "in charge" back in those days.

It certainly makes you think. It's mind-bloggling!

Here I Am, world!

I think of myself as a rather ordinary person. That is, I don’t consider myself to be overly pietistic and I don’t think most of my friends would, either. (Would you agree with that, Philip Del Ricci?)

But I am a spiritual person and I find that reflections or short meditations help get me through the day. I just thought I’d share with whoever is “out there” some of the thoughts that have meaning for me, and see if they touch you in any way, as well.

Most of them come from various books I have on hand in my personal library, and from time to time I may add my own words as the Spirit moves me.

Friendship Forever
Not everyone has true friends.
If we’re fortunate,
in the course of a lifetime
we have a few very close friends,
“soul-mates,” if you will,
a few people with whom we can open our heart
and be completely honest.
A friend is someone we can be our true self with,
a person with whom we can share our deepest joys and sorrows,
one who can listen and accept
and never judge or condemn.

from Whispers of God’s Love by Mitch Finley