We would be so much happier a race if we could accept both halves of this. We attribute no end of inappropriate meaning to the sundry miseries of life, concluding erroneously that great misfortunes and endless minor crap occur for reasons. We insist on reasons. Perhaps we have displeased the gods (we would usually speak of God here but I think the reasoning is primitive enough to go back to earlier days). We are being punished. Or we are being tested. Can we not allow for surd shit? It is just part of the nature of things. Earthquakes are part of how our universe is constructed (well, our tiny fragment of it). If God lets nature be nature (much as we posit an allowance of free will to ourselves), then nature will do what nature does. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, tectonic plates gotta shift. To those whose lives or homes are lost and those who love them it is tragic. But there is no need to project moralism on to it. Not a punishment. Not a test. Just an earthquake. Let it be just what it is.
As for the second part.... Ah, just breathe it in. Even in earthquakes and other mishaps, grace abides. In human compassion, human action, and in the life force that causes green shoots to break through concrete, grace abides.
Just nattering. I saw my little bumper sticker graphic and couldn't resist putting it up.
--the BB
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