I have also decided, though, that it does not really matter to me whether God does intervene in such events – I cannot know either when or why such an intervention would occur. Such an action would serve God’s purposes, not mine, and I cannot possibly understand those purposes – I am not God, I am limited by time and space and intelligence and perspective. Maybe there is a perfectly good reason why thousands of human babies had to die on the planet Earth on the day after Christmas 2004; why entire families had to be wiped out. I cannot know it. Any attempt by me to “create” a purpose would be at best pure speculation and at worst wishful thinking. I am sure that it is no coincidence that those who are quickest to attribute motives to an infinite deity appear to be those most likely to adopt the most mean-spirited motives possible to vindicate their own pre-existing views.

[via A Progressive Christian]

From this post at Jordon Cooper:

An expression of "we have done what we need to do", I think we are missing the point. I hope it is a start. A reminder that there are Darfur's that are happening and the west as well as the church has to step up to the plate and respond to humanitarian crisis all over the world.

I was chatting with Leighton via MSN Messenger tonight and I asked why it is that we respond with overwhelming support to Asia which was a disaster that the world could not prevent yet the world just ignores humanitarian disasters that we can protect (Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Darfur).

A Time For Everything (or Much Need, Little Time)

What does it change, this Tsunami? Humans beings are vunerable. People suffer. Did that really begin on December 26? I hear they are asking, "Where is God?" which is similar to the thought I had there toward the end when my mom was asking for her husband's gun.

Don't get me wrong. I do wonder about all those without homes, or neighbors to go to. But I ponder more these days about my mom's cold body beneath the frozen earth.

Even the Bible says, "Let the dead bury the dead."

{from this post via Been There...Still There}

The Large and Small

It isn't just the big things like tsunamis that destroy someone's spirit:

How does a person grieve something that wasn't even born yet???

[via Crisis? What crisis?]

We need the tremors of grace to shake our own souls before we can look at another and move towards them in grace and with love.

[via Unedited Ravings]

Who doesn't hate resolutions? What are they but yardsticks with which to gauge our failure at self-improvement?

[via Feeble Knees]

Truth has a way of seeping through like winter cold, even when we're busy running around stuffing rags in the cracks just as fast as we can. When you write, it seeps in faster. There are too many potentially frightening and painful things in my psyche for me to be entirely comfy with this, so all too often I find myself stuffing the cracks with near-compulsively frantic activities: nibbling, playing mindless computer games, blog surfing, napping, doing housework quickly rather than deliberately, taking too-fast walks, or pacing the floor restlessly. Anything to not think, to not feel what I'm afraid might be waiting for me just outside, digging little claws into any available crevice and prying for all it's worth.

[via Quotidian Light]

[Wendy] Farley - "Tragedy is the price paid for existence."

[Nancy R.] Howell- "Compassion and redemptive power resist the dehumanizing, tragic conditions of suffering,..."

Shaken up

It leads me to believe that our society has stooped to the point where it needs to be bombarded with images and video in order to be stirred into action. I say that countries should keep the money coming, just redirect it to where it is still required. Heaven knows there are more than enough people still suffering.

[via An Alberda Onlne]

[from this post]

The very inexplicability of sad events like the tsunami, like the AIDS crisis or even like the cancer death of the father of one of my daughter's 2nd-grade classmates last week are, to me, reminders to focus on our obligations to one another, not to the infinite; to honor the creator, if any, by honoring creation itself and hoping that's good enough.

--Eric Zorn, quoted at Holy Weblog]