Posted by
stevo on Thursday, October 25, 2007 2:52:56 PM
There has been much demonizing and political demagoguery at work in the current debate over causes of the wildfires, and frankly, I find it appalling. When natural disasters strike, are we going to resign ourselves to superficial discussions on politics? I doubt global warming had anything to do with these fires, and even if uncleared brush and arson were contributing factors, these fires were bound to occur.
I'll say right off the bat that I speak as one who has suffered no significant loss. When fire neared my city, Escondido, I didn't wait for the evacuation order--I just threw most of my earthly possessions in my car and drove to Seattle. Why not turn an evacuation into a vacation? That question is not to make light of the situation--I know of neighbors, church family, and community members who have lost homes. When students like myself return to Escondido, we will work with others in our city to rebuild.
With that personal anecdote aside, let be prescribe Morpheus' advice to Neo in The Matrix to ask the right questions. Whenever tragedy strikes, we always have to find human actors and socio-political factors to be de facto whipping-boys, because, hey!--when we have something tangible to blame, then we can find tangible solutions and prevent such tangible factors from exacting their demonic enterprize in the future.
For every Columbine, there must be demonic parents and lax gun laws. For every 9/11, there must be terrorist plots, government conspiracies, and incompetent airport security workers. Even for a hurricane bearing down on the poor city of New Orleans, we have to give "her" a name and ask why our big brothers in the federal government didn't impose bigger barriers between the she-devil and the city she waylaid. This is not to say that these actors and factors could not be improved to minimalize tragedies, but when are we going to consider the possibility that the evil and brokenness that have affected this world are sometimes outside of our control?
In America, everybody likes to be their own boss, but who of us can reign in the wind and the rain? Instead of offering trite answers, we should make it our business to ask painful questions. I'll readily admit, it sucks probing the deeper questions--the ones that inevitably expose human inability to form a utopian ideal. If we ask these questions, we will find that the solutions do not lie in larger bureaucracies or stronger building foundations, but in an old, rugged cross that offers the solution to the problems of human sin and suffering and a broken world. In due time, when the mighty government is shown to be as weak as humanity and the supposedly-secure foundations fall, it will be the Person and the work accomplished on that cross that will offer us hope.
That cross will also be the driving motivation for many who will give their heart, time, and love to rebuild what their neighbors have lost. It is time to rebuild, and that time will come again and again.