KATRINA—CLICHES VERSUS FAITH

Words seem to do little now and yet they are a tool to help sort out, process and communicate the feelings and questions so many people have right now.

~~Do I have a job?
~~Where’s my relative?
~~Where will we live?
~~How long will we be away from home?
~~Who’s to blame?
~~When will I get my old life back?
~~Why?

That last question sticks in my craw. I have asked “why” in these days, not only for the many tragic scenes I have seen, but also why were my home and family and my life spared and relatively untouched by hard and the storm’s destruction.

Why?

It’s a powerful question; a deep yearning of the heart for understanding. It’s a deep hunger to make sense of upheaval, of violation, of tragedy.

I don’t have that answer.

I am reminded of a dear friend and spiritual director of mine, who, some years ago, went through a very tough illness which robbed him of his voice. He is a gifted minister and preacher. It hurt me to see one of my heroes in such pain and to feel so helpless.

I asked Henry, “How do you cope?”

He said, in a barely audible whisper, “Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I scream but no one hears me.”

Then he said something which challenged me then and challenges me now…

“Mike, you know sometimes I ask God ‘Why?’ But I realized I never asked God ‘why’ when things were going well. And the truth is I may never know why, I may never understand. I realize that ‘Why?’ is a question that is beyond me and one which isn’t where I should be placing most of my energy.”

“The more appropriate question is ‘How?’ How, as a person of faith, do you, God, want me to deal with this today?”

That’s the question where I choose to focus. It is easy to have faith in good times. Now is a time where it takes faith to ask HOW, not why?

Having faith does not mean that we lose our human faculties of wondering and wanting to know the “final outcomes” of all of this. Faith does not mean that we aren’t allowed some days to cope by crying. By screaming. By feeling sorry for ourselves. By seeing nothing but flood waters and darkness.

Yet, I am challenged to ask “How, as a person of faith, do you, God, want me to deal with this today?”

Join me in praying for the grace to ask THAT question more and more.