Bournagain

Since news the calamity in Port au Prince began filtering in nearly a week ago I have had times where it has been difficult to keep focused on things demanding my attention. It’s not the first time an earthquake has wrought destruction in a part of the world already woefully ill-equipped to deal with catastrophes. It probably won’t be the quake that produced the most fatalities in my lifetime either. However, this one is affecting me more than most.

For one thing I think it is the first time I have been aware of my children really understanding the extent of the disaster. Previous catastrophes haven’t affected them the way this one has – our 8-year old frequently talks about Haiti; without being prompted prayers for the Haitian people are offered up at mealtimes. It helps that Haiti already had a place in their consciousness. We have a Haitian friend in our church, and had (coincidentally?) begun supporting a work amongst Haitian orphans living in the Dominican Republic not long ago. It’s not that we had any particular concern for the Haitian people more than any other, but simply a belief in our Haitian friend who has taken up this cause, and wanting to support him. We agreed as a family that we would eat just rice for dinner on Mondays (when we remember), and give the money we save for this project.

So when the earthquake hit the children already had that connection. Not having TV they have been spared from a lot of the images – not that I am against children being exposed to the suffering of their fellow human beings per se. But images of suffering are so ubiquitous that it is easy to become blasé about them, and I haven’t noticed our children needing the reinforcement of pictures to understand the seriousness of what has happened. I can’t get over the extent of the damage though. It is so difficult to envisage an entire city leveled, and I keep imagining what it would be like to live there, and the overwhelming sense of not having any idea where to even begin putting life back together again.

And then you start thinking, why Haiti? I don’t mean in the sense “how could God let this happen”, because this is a question that doesn’t usually occur to me. I don’t blame God for natural disasters. I ask the question in the sense, why Haiti instead of, say, France? Are we more deserving than Haitians, that we live in such relative comfort, in secure homes, with reliable incomes? How do we get off scot free? And what if disaster did strike? Would we know what to do? Not just in terms of having enough tins of food stashed away to ride out a disaster, but would we have the emotional and psychological framework in place to be able to not only to get ourselves through it, but to be a beacon hope to those around us in the midst of it. If my house fell down, would I blame God? Would I shake my fist at him? Would I dissolve into a puddle of anxiety and hopelessness? Or would I have the necessary insight to realise that it’s only a house, and that life is more than the sum of my possessions, and get on with the job of helping my neighbour dig out his relatives?

If nothing else, the images of Port au Prince put many of my petty concerns in perspective, and is a great reminder of how ephemeral are our days.