RICHARD SCHMIDT

Living and Learning

 My son in Rhode Island tells me of a friend in New York City whose apartment was obliterated by Hurricane Sandy.

When the storm blew away the balcony of the unit above the one occupied by my son’s friend, the joists holding the balcony in place were also ripped out, causing the unit above to crash into his apartment.

He and his wife were in bed at the time. When my son’s friend looked up and saw the ceiling and furniture falling toward them, he managed to push his wife out of bed onto the floor just as a beam fell where she had been sleeping, shattering his hand.

People on the Gulf Coast are familiar with tales like that. Some have experienced them first-hand. And some were not as lucky as my son’s friend and his wife.

Or were they not so much lucky as blessed? Questions like that perplex me. I pray every day that God will bless my children, friends, and others. When someone I have prayed for recovers from an illness, I then say a prayer of thanksgiving. I want to know that a good and powerful God is in charge of what happens in the world and that my praying is in some way part of his gracious governance.

But then, why do people get sick in the first place? Why are there hurricanes at all? Why do some people die in them while others don’t? If we thank God when someone recovers from an illness, shouldn’t we blame God when someone else doesn’t? And most puzzling of all, why do human beings inflict such harm on one another and on the planet? If God is good and powerful, wouldn’t we expect him to intervene to stop these things?

Philosophers call this the problem of evil. It’s a conundrum that has bothered thoughtful people for ages, but the problem of evil is only a problem if you believe in a good and powerful God. If there is no such God, then everything happens randomly and human history is “just one damned thing after another,” as Elbert Hubbard once said. If Hubbard was right, then the survival of my son’s friend and his wife during Hurricane Sandy was indeed luck and nothing more.

Religious believers have come up with several solutions to the problem of evil. The Book of Job offers a solution of sorts, though it doesn’t really answer the nagging questions so much as it transcends them. The Book of Proverbs offers another, and Ecclesiastes yet another. None of these solutions is entirely satisfying.

Christians look to Jesus Christ, whose crucifixion was a horrid miscarriage of justice but also brought immeasurable good to the world. What appeared to be a disaster was indeed a disaster, but also more than a disaster. The crucifixion of Jesus suggests that what we see is not all there is because God’s designs are beyond our understanding.

Most people can offer their own examples of good coming out of evil. Perhaps my son’s friend and his wife will be drawn closer together and find their love deepened because of their experience of Hurricane Sandy.

I had a job for six years in which I felt chewed up and spit out every day. Much later, I realized that the lessons I’d learned from that experience helped me avoid many a pitfall later on. I count those six years now as a blessing and I thank God for them (though I wish God would find a less painful way to teach me my lessons).

Thoughtful people will probably ponder these things so long as human life continues. No proposed solution to the problem of evil will satisfy every questioner, and none will make you feel better if a hurricane blows your house away or you’re trapped in a brutal job or relationship.

On this Thanksgiving Day, let us put such perplexities aside. Let us count our blessings (or strokes of good luck) and look, even in tragedy, for a glimmer of hope and redemption. If you believe in God, thank him for your blessings. If you don’t, then at least pause to acknowledge how lucky you are.