Tsunami Crisis of Faith?

The past couple of days, I have watched, listened, and read that many people of many faiths are questioning their beliefs in God following the earthquake and tsunami that killed over 150,000 in and around the Indian Ocean. Frankly, I'm amazed that something like a natural disaster could shake people's faiths, but then I guess I'm amazed that people's faiths seem to be so much based on God protecting them from trials and tribulations.

I guess a lot of people still believe in a God who controls the natural world, a God who visits terrible natural events on bad people and protects good people from bad things happening to them or those they love. I guess I haven't believed in that kind of God for a long time.

I suppose my God isn't as all-powerful as the God I was taught to believe in. My God can no more stop an earthquake than I can. However, my God is in the earthquake and the tsunami and the death and the miraculous escapes from death and in the relief efforts and in the healing.

My God is the God who says, "Be still and know that I am God," from the Hebrew Testament. My God neither wills my destruction nor my safety. My God is simply there to lend me the strength I need to do what needs to be done next. My God puts people in front of me so that I can help them, or not, as I choose.

It's not that the God I conceptualize doesn't care, nor do I think my concept of God is somehow superior to other concepts. To me, God simply is and infuses everything for the good, even if I don't understand it, perhaps especially if I don't understand it.

Ever since I came back from Vietnam, my basic life philosophy has been that shit happens, and people die. Where is God in that? God made it possible for life to exist and take whatever form life could or would take. From that beginning, whatever happens happens, and neither God nor I can do anything about it.

Comments and The Blahs

I wondered why my blog wasn't getting any comments at all. Yesterday I found out one reason (I mean it could be so boring nobody is looking, right?). I had to set a flag to allow general comments. Who knew? I thought I had set everything up properly, but apparently I had not.

I'ts not that I expect a lot of comments, but everybody gets one or two now and then. Now, if I don't get any comments, it probably means that nothing is resonating with anyone.
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I've been in a real funk lately. I can't say exactly why. Yes, my Dad is dying, but he's hanging in there and seems not yet ready to go and the chemo seems to be helping him. And, yes, it's the holidays, but I usually like the holidays.

No, I can't really say why I'm in such a funk. I don't want to go out. I don't want to see anybody. I don't want to read or write anything. I can stare at the television for hours, and I can play Neverwinter Nights. I'm currently juggling different characters to see how different types work. That's about all I get enthusiastic about lately.

I don't even get enthusiastic about this blog, but I've promised myself I'll write in it, and I might as well say what there is to say, even if it's not much.

Tsunami Thoughts

Compared to what I've seen from the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean in the past week or so, I've never had a bad day in my life. All of my problems pale to insignificance against such a tragedy.

It has been equally edifying to see the mobilization of aid from around the world. This was a tragedy that seems to have moved the whole world. And what a tragedy! No shock-and-awe bombing campaign can begin to compare in destructive power to what nature did December 26, 2004. We human beings are puny compared with the forces of nature, and every time we think we are more powerful, nature shows us better.

There is really nothing to do but applaud the human spirit that comes together in this tragedy. There is nothing to do but applaud the resilient human spirit that perseveres in such difficult circumstances as the survivors are facing.

On Death & Dying

I feel like this is the unspeakable subject in our culture. We are death-averse. We look for ways to beat it or cheat it, to grab more years than we otherwise would have. So we've developed surgeries that prolong life: heart surgeries, prostate surgeries, colon surgeries, transplants of all kinds. And we have drugs, both to cure illness and to prevent it in the first place.

I don't want it to sound like I'm against all of these medical breakthroughs and means of saving lives or prolonging life. Far from being a suicidal depressive, I'm living a happy life, and I want to go on living for awhile yet. and particularly when we're pain-free. And all of those surgeries I mentioned earlier allow many people years, even decades of life they otherwise would not have had.

No, what concerns me is not the life saving aspects of these development. What concerns me is the death-averseness of how we as a culture view these things. Because we have all these surgeries and drugs, we seem to think that the medical profession can fix anything. That's especially true since we've developed resuscitation techniques that actually bring people back from the brink of death.

We've gotten into the mode of thinking safety first. We have become cautious in the extreme. That, I think, is the reason for all of the "wrongful death" lawsuits and other lawsuits. It's convenient to blame lawyers, and there are lawyers who will sue anybody for anything because they know they'll get a settlement. But the biggest problem is us. We think we're entitled to life without risk, that we can make a mistake and have somebody else pay for it because they made it possible for us to make a mistake.

Take SUVs as an example. People drive SUVs as if they are cars, and the auto makers market them that way. But SUVs are trucks. They're more top-heavy than cars, and they should not be driven as fast as one drives a car because they're more massive than cars and take longer to stop and are less maneuverable. Yet we drive them like cars (oh, and we drive our cars too fast, too). And driving SUVs like cars, we're somehow surprised when they act like trucks.

For me, it comes back to personal responsibility. If you're going to drive your SUV like it's a sports car, don't whine when you roll it over. Sure the SUV should be made safer, but that doesn't excuse the driver going 75 or 80 mph on the freeway who rolls the SUV when making a sudden evasive maneuver (particularly when the sudden maneuver can be even partly blamed on the fact that you're driving faster than the legal limit).

My Dad smoked for 61 years, and now he is dying of lung cancer. What I admire most about him at this point in his life is that he's not interested in blaming the tobacco companies for his addiction or its now-evident consequences. He realized that he made the choice, and he accepts his cancer as a consequence of it. Yes, tobacco is the most addictive substance legally allowed for sale in the world, and smoking is a choice that each of us makes, one way or the other.

As with anything in this blog, I'd be interested in your comments.

It's A New Year

Happy New Year, everybody!
Of course, that's an odd sentiment on a blog nobody seems to read. Perhaps if I post more often somebody will find it.

Yes, I write for recognition. I've gotten some from my web site, http://home.columbus.rr.com/murrell/, which is a collection of essays that I started back before blogging was well known. I also write as a form of therapy; it's a way for me to think about things and sort them out. Even though there's not a lot posted lately on this blog or on my web site, I've been writing fairly regularly in a journal I started at my new job. Although I've done a fair amount of bitchin' about that job, I've also journaled some other thoughts for myself.

Well, this year I'm resolved to post more in this space. I'm not ready to commit to daily, but I am committed to weekly posting at least. And I see myself adding to a day's posting as the day goes along. So here's to 2005; may it be a better year all over the world.