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Dear God, I simply do not understand.
II
Where are you, God?
In this collision
Of events and factors and forces
Which should kill 100,000 and more
and crush the homes and livelihoods of millions,
Where are you in this?
Where are you, God?
You who made the ocean floor
Who filled the earth with people
Who is in control of
Earthquake, tsunami, beaches, huts, hotels.
Where are you in this?
Where are you, God?
When babies and children and the very old
And people with disabilities
And the poor and landless
Those you claim to have a bias towards
Have been overwhelmingly the victims
Where are you in this?
Where are you, God?
Are you changing our understanding
Of the God we thought we knew?
Are you teaching us compassion for the poor
Are you making the human family more intimate
Are you changing the world in a way we cannot yet see?
(and is it worth the cost?)
Where are you, God?
Are you an aid worker, a soldier,
A volunteer doctor, a neighbour,
A helicopter pilot,
Anyone who cares and prays:
Is that where you are in this?
Where are you, God?
Were you playing on a beach at Phuket;
Were you riding a train in Sri Lanka;
Were you a fisherman;
Did you live by the sea in Aceh?
Is that where you are in this?
Where are you, God?
Worse than not knowing would be
Not to cry out to you,
To deny your love; to lose sight of your presence.
The worst thing we could do is to leave you out of it And
neglect to ask,
Where are you, God, where are you, in all this?
III
The scriptures everywhere describe your voice as like the
roar of rushing waters.
Lord help me, your church and your world to hear your voice
in this calamity.
Let us hear your voice in rushing waters, in the cries of
those suffer, in the silence of the dead and
disappeared.
Lord, help us to trust in you.
Lord teach us to play our part in support of the
survivors.
Lord, help us to go on with you.
Lord be with us
As we weep,
and give
and pray.
Lord may we turn to you.
Extract from an address given by Paul Grayston at
St John's,
Launceston Tasmania on Sunday 2 Jan 2005
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