When the earth trembles, people tremble with it. It’s impossible not to be overcome by panic and deep fear. Fear for ourselves, for our dear ones and for the world we built around us with so much effort, which constitutes the womb in which we dwell. The emergency does not consist in anxiety over an unknown future, but in an incumbent, threatening, and destructive reality.
The barrage of questions represents an earthquake of mind and faith that prevents us from preserving a hopeful, faithful gaze towards the world.
When the cry of terror is directed to God it means that, after all, in ways known only to Him, He is present. Outbursts of fear, resentment and accusations draw us closer to Job, in brotherly kinship. He too experienced utter destruction. In fact, the soundness recovered at a later stage, when viewed only from the perspective of possessions and property, can compensate for the loss. But when viewed from the perspective of the offspring, they will never be the same as those who perished. I lie safely in my home that registered no damage and I have no property or children I have been stripped of. Thus I’m not personally involved. If I claimed closeness to the victims of the earthquake it would sound false and hypocritical. How is it possible to perceive a sudden tragedy of such proportions? I have no answer. I am speechless and faltering. In similar situations, far-sightedness, alertness, along with the capability to fend for oneself, do not count. We’re at the mercy of fate, of unpredictability, of what is absurd. The only option is to extend a helping hand, hoping, deep down, that we will never have to experience such a tragedy in first person. Our scientific developments, technologies, risk being labelled as scientism, and, worse still, as superficial. We are inept. In the past days we all wondered which would be the quickest and safest escape route if an earthquake should occur near us.
Facing the realm of faith sends shivers through our veins.
We could appeal to words of devotion or disappointing invocations. Even insults against rationality and against the suffering of others: if God is the Father how can all of this have happened? Why did it happen to some and not to others? Why did families plunge into mourning and grief? I have no answer. I could clutch theological straws and devise an answer that leads to God taking care of us. It would be dishonest, as well as an insult to myself.
I can only find one way out, enabling me to be near all those who suffer, embracing all forms of grief: don’t ask me where is God but where we are as human persons. How are we caring for the Creation?
God made flesh in the incarnated Son is the God who weeps with us, who shares all our pains. Each one of our pains. The God that instilled in every human person all the qualities to make the earth a beautiful place, to make it liveable and make everyone happy. It’s not a stratagem to avoid an answer. In fact, it is the only attitude which, in me, imbues hope. The only one that enables me to envisage a future when we will be able to control the earth and all its manifestations.
God does not punish. God loves and guides us.
Loosing our beloved ones and our personal belongings leaves us in a state of desolation. It’s similar to a desert of salt that cannot be crossed with our sole forces. We need to extend our gaze to the sky and look at the stars which, even at night, show us the way. We must let ourselves be guided to our final destination. Our destination is directed at Him, asking Him, in the suffocating cries, to remain near to those who suffer and are innocent, to enlighten those bestowed with the gift of science in the identification of safe avenues. This doesn’t mean lying in our sheltered beds and falling asleep. It means risking our lives in an Amen that sees the Crucifix, suffering and painful, knowing Him Resurrected. It’s a challenge that cries out to God: look at us, everything depends on You. In order to cultivate – in spite of everything, standing with our feet on the stony rubble and on the spiritual rubble of our brethren – a gaze extended beyond that path leading to Him, to that Face that all the dead now contemplate with serenity and joy. He can only but donate it, asking us to pour it into our suffering hearts.
May we give Him credit in suffering and misfortune. May we give him credit so that our interior earthquake may subdue and be replaced with the gaze of life.
