On Hurricane Katrina
and the Will of God
by Daphne Levey
See the Founding
Members section for information on Daphne Levey.
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath were devastating events
for the United States. We watched in horror as the levees in
New Orleans broke, flooding the proud, old city and creating
the largest migration of Americans since the Great Depression.
Other parts of the Gulf Coast were completely demolished by
the strength of the storm. We watched people stranded without
the basic necessities of life that many Americans take for
granted, food, water, shelter, medical care. We were whispering, "If
it can happen in a large American city like New Orleans, it
can happen anywhere."
There are some among us who have tried to give meaning to the
events by finding a reason why God would lift a hand and cause
such things to happen. It has been conjectured that God was displeased
and wanted to convey displeasure through the events. Some say
that God was displeased by the pull-out of the Israelis from
the Gaza Strip and caused the events to underscore God's will
that the Israelis stay in Gaza. Some say that God is displeased
with the behavior of some Americans, "immoral" behavior in their way of
thinking, and that God struck New Orleans specifically because
it is a "sinful" city, too many good times rolling.
Some say that the events show us that God is giving us a warning
to change our environment-killing ways or the Earth will shrug
us off like water rolling off of a hot griddle. A warning shot
across the bow that still managed to kill some of those caught
up in it. There is a perverse comfort just in believing that
the events have some meaning on a cosmic scale, that there are
reasons, even if the reasons don't flatter the Deity all that
much.
There are others who are not so eager to assign to God such a willingness
to cause that kind of grief and pain to humans. Surely a benevolent
parent-God would not want to cause suffering and hardship among
God's children. These people are caught up in a paradox, though,
because they still wrestle with the feeling that even if God didn't
cause the events, it seems reasonable that God allowed it. Surely,
God has the power to stop such events, and obviously, at least
in this case, God did not. This paradox has been around for centuries
and has no satisfactory answer. If God is all-powerful, then certainly
God has the ability to intervene in any event that occurs on Earth
and can alter natural laws when necessary to protect humans. God
can and God doesn't. Or God does alter natural laws in seeming-random
events, such as when miraculous cures occur for people. We can't
count on it happening, though; it just does, some of the time.
Both of these groups could easily find themselves dissatisfied
with their answers. Do they sit in the dark sometimes and wonder, "Am
I worshiping a monster? Am I living in an indifferent universe
with an indifferent God?"
There is another perspective. Not perfect either, and still worthy
of consideration. Let us suppose that God was not responsible for
the events. Hurricanes are just natural events that happen in nature
when the right conditions are present. The water in the Gulf heats
up in the summer. A low pressure system forms and pulls the water
and heat up from the water's surface creating a storm. Other larger
weather patterns direct the hurricane along a path that is at least
somewhat predictable. Hurricanes have occurred with some regularity
since the beginning of time. It is possible to track the activity
of hurricanes and find patterns over time. Our meteorologists predicted
that this year would be an active year for hurricanes and they
were not wrong.
One uncomfortable conclusion from this exercise might be that it
was not God who caused the tragedy of these events but humans.
After all, it was humans who initially built the city of New Orleans
below sea-level. It was humans who built all of the structures
that were in the path of the storm. It was humans who prevented
the natural barriers, the silt from the Mississippi, to continue
to form in the Delta, which could have protected New Orleans from
a hurricane. It was humans who built an inadequate levee system
for New Orleans. We knew that the levee system was inadequate and
yet we failed to fix it. Year after year, we knew what would happen
if a hurricane were to come ashore in this part of the Gulf Coast,
and we did not act to protect ourselves. It was humans also who
did not evacuate all of the people from New Orleans when we knew
that Hurricane Katrina was on the way. We left them there. And,
we did not prepare ourselves to take care of them there even though
we left them there. It is easy to conclude that what happened on
the Gulf Coast around the coming ashore of Hurricane Katrina was
the playing out of the consequences of our own behavior. Not God's
doing, but our own.
We know that our world is based on consequences. The interconnections
that create predictable patterns for us are what make our planet
habitable. If we could not count on gravity and electromagnetism
working the same way all the time, we would live in a frightening
world indeed. The great cycle of life, in all of its complex predictability,
is the foundation for our survival. Death is predictable. Everything
dies. Energy is not created or destroyed. Food always grows when
certain conditions are present. Water flows downhill. Planets and
stars follow their orbits. Our world is ensconced in a profound
order at its very deepest level, which includes much beauty and
mystery for us. Is it really God's failure when we cry out to be
relieved of the consequences of our own actions by asking for the
distortion of the undergirding of the universe? Surely God can
help us to see another way out of our dilemma.
Why do we blame God for causing or, at least, tolerating these
events? One answer might be, so that we can avoid blaming our
own lack of attention to matters that are clearly within our
competence. Living within a predictable universe, we are the
negligent, merciless ones when we do not act within the limits
of what is presented before our noses. When you hear someone
asking the inevitable question, "Why
did God allow the events surrounding Katrina to happen?",
a translation is in order. Ask yourself instead, "Why did
our community of people in the United States allow these events
to happen?" And most importantly, ask, "What can we learn
from our failures here and what can we do to prevent it from happening
again?" God will help us to answer those questions, and
in that process, we will encounter the benevolence and power
of God. |
