Why, O Lord

I think that all of us looking at the pictures and hearing the stories from Haiti this week can't help but ask "why, God." Why these people? Why this? Why now? Why are their earthquakes at all? Why do people suffer?

I wish that I could say that there are easy answers (or indeed any answers at all) for those questions. But if there are I certainly haven't found them.

I think that situtations like this bring the question of faith into focus. We say that we believe that God loves and cares for his children. That is easy to say when all goes well, it is more difficult when things go badly.

But I think the challenge is to seek the presence of God in the midst of the things we don't understand - to look for the face of God in the rubble and see where the light of God shines through the darkness. It isn't a very satisfying answer, but it's the best that I can do right now.