Blessed Curse

The news reports of the last two days have been dominated by the events in Haiti, where a magnitude-7 earthquake all but flattened the capitol Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas. As photographs and first-hand accounts begin to arrive, we see an area of the world where people were already facing daily challenges far greater than those we have experienced, now coupled with an unspeakable tragedy.

It is in trying times such as these that I find it particularly difficult to hear people say they have been "blessed" in their lives. For it stands to reason that if some among us have been blessed, then the opposite must also be true, and there are those among us who have been cursed. The nefarious Pat Robertson certainly thinks so. I do not believe this to be true. God no more curses a Haitian mother who has seen her child crushed under rubble than God blesses a Hollywood starlet with beautiful children and a quick metabolism.

So where is God in this tragedy? So often scoffing skeptics point to events such as Haiti as proof that a higher power does not exist, and at first glance, we could lament this to be true. After all, why would God do this to the people God so claims to love? But if we reject the idea that some among us are hand-selected to be blessed, cursed or otherwise, then God's presence becomes clearer, at work in something much greater than a game of arbitrary bestowals. Indeed, I believe that God's presence is where it has always been, and where it will continue to be when the camera lenses and headlines turn elsewhere. It is in the kinship that defines the human condition, in loving thy neighbor and helping a stranger in need, examples of which we have heard and seen in the last two days in our collective sorrow, the willingness of volunteers, and the outpouring of donations. If there are to be any blessings, I will point to these acts as more deserving recipients.