Katrina & The Wave

(First published in Bali Advertiser, September 14, 2005)

… for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. – The Gospel of St. Matthew, 5:45

Some folks love to see the hand of God guiding death and destruction in natural disasters to wipe out “sinners” unlike themselves. Thus, Michael Marcavage of the Philadelphia-based Christian organization Repent America pointed out that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans two days before the start of Southern Decadence, an annual gay and lesbian festival. And in December -- after the tsunami hit Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India -- Hindu, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders blamed people who don’t pray enough, Western tourists who have sex on Asian beaches, humanity’s inherent evil and depravity, among other things.

Someone or something divine, it seems, always has to be behind each catastrophe that strikes. Or maybe some people feel superior blaming collective and personal karma instead of petty heavenly entities – as if karma is any better at explaining what is and what happens.

“Grant an idea or belief to be true; what concrete difference will its being true make in any one’s actual life? … What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?” asked the American pragmatist philosopher William James (1842-1910). I can only answer that little of what we choose to believe or think makes a difference in how we respond when waters are rising and there is breath to struggle for and food to be found.

Since I started thinking about and writing this column, a plane has fallen out of the sky in Medan killing at least 148, a theater fire in Egypt has killed more than 30, crowd panic on a Baghdad bridge killed hundreds, and typhoons have killed dozens in China, Taiwan, and Japan. And tomorrow, next week, next year, people are going to die in car accidents, in more plane crashes, more natural disasters. Once we get past the mundane explanations for why a disaster or tragedy occurs and kills – a loose screw, a poorly maintained levee, lack of advance warning – to asking and answering a cosmological “Why?”, we quickly reach the limit of the utility of our knowing.

It doesn’t matter whether an earthquake, tsunami, volcano, or hurricane is God’s retribution on sinners or his warning to the spared. It doesn’t change what has to be done: The dead have to be buried, survivors have to be assisted, plans and preparation have to be made to make sure it isn’t as bad the next time. The question “Why?” doesn’t enter into it, no matter how you answer it.

In day-to-day life, too, “Why?” doesn’t change what one does unless instead of rising and going to work one is going to sit under the Bo Tree and wait for enlightenment. And that doesn’t work unless we are all Buddha. Someone is probably going to argue that we are all Buddha or all God or all little bits of the Great Whole playing a game with ourselves by having forgotten that we are all little bits of the Great Whole. But even that someone is going to wake up in the morning, have their morning cuppa, and do whatever it is they normally do -- even it is only to take the next shift under the Bo Tree. Even then, if that someone happens to be caught by tsunami or typhoon, he or she will still either be dead or just another survivor looking for help.

As skeptic and pragmatist, perhaps materialist, I don’t deny mystery; I simply don’t accept explanations that can’t be proved or that aren’t useful. I don’t know if God used Katrina to strike New Orleans as a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah; I don’t know if Katrina was a “soldier of Allah” striking against the Great Satan of America (as some Muslims bloggers have said, according to the Times of Oman Web site). I am pretty sure that stronger and higher levees would have kept most of the flood waters out the city; just as I’m pretty sure something vital was missed in the last maintenance checkup of the Mandala Airlines’ plane that went down.

Finding ultimate explanation in deities and karmic workings is fine as long as it doesn’t keep people from tightening screws and tying their shoelaces. But that is what I fear -- believers counting on God or Allah or fate to determine the outcome of an event and not paying attention to holes in the dike, worn brake pads, flammable materials in a corner, loose railings, overdue elevator safety inspections, dead batteries in the smoke alarm … Oh, Isis, protect me!

Copyright © 2005 Lee Roy LeRoi