Hello friends,
My family finally got power back after six days without it. We are among the very very lucky ones. Many friends lost cars and homes. Many others just a few miles away lost everything. Current reports suggest that there are still hundreds of people unaccounted for and tragically the death toll continues to rise as the flood waters recede and the rescue crews are able to get further into the mountain communities impacted by Hurricane Helene.
Two of our favorite places in Asheville, Biltmore Village and the River Arts District, were entirely under water and will likely take years to rebuild . . . and yet those are only buildings. The personal loss, the dreams shattered, the lives wrecked . . . it is almost too much to take in. This hurricane has illustrated the sublimity of trauma. Trauma announces the inability to make meaning. It is not something to be justified, but something that overflows our concepts, our categories, and our capabilities.
While sitting in the dark at my house this past week, I have had lots of time to reflect on this event and although I will be processing it for a very long time, I want to share with you just a few of my initial thoughts about it that apply more broadly to the human condition.
1. The Problem of Evil is Real and Unsolvable
I know that some professional philosophers who might be reading this post will take issue with this first point, but it is what I think is true. Often in the history of philosophy “natural evil” is offered as a particularly difficult challenge to the goodness and power of God. If God is all powerful and all good, so goes the objection, then why doesn’t God prevent things like tornados and hurricanes? This is a very good question and a bit more thorny than matters of “moral evil” because human agency is not easily brought in such that turns to “free will defenses” are likely to be successful. In other words, a tornado or hurricane is not typically the result of a human actualizing their freedom (and thereby restricting what God is able to do in response - the idea being that God’s love prevents God from overriding human free will.
Now, we should note that in an age of increasingly severe impacts from climate change, human agency is becoming more of a factor in natural disasters, but still the problem remains. Without being able to argue anything here, I just want to baldly claim that natural disasters illustrate that evil is real, suffering is often unwarranted, and there is rarely fairness in the impacts of such evil (indeed, it is often the most vulnerable that are the most significantly impacted by such storms). I don’t think that this should make us run to our theology textbooks to try to find a new theodicy that will solve the problem. Instead, I think it should make us lean hard into the fact that for those who affirm theism there might not be (probably is not) an answer to the reality of evil in our world. Figuring out how to continue to affirm faith and hope and grace despite such evil is the tricky part. Right now, a week after Helene, it is very very tricky indeed.
2. Human Kindness Always Shines Through
In the midst of such a horrific event, I have been amazed, though not surprised, by the near constant displays of small kindness and neighbor love. From folks running extension cords from generators into the street so that people can charge phones, to strangers with chainsaws removing trees from roadways,. From thousands of volunteers pouring into the area, to first responders working seemingly non-ending days to bring aid to people in need.
Our world is so often defined by petty selfishness, egoism, and greed - all fueled by fear and resentment. And yet when things go really bad, we are here for each other. Our politics don’t matter. Our perspectives are irrelevant. Our priorities are all set aside. Our humanity shines through and we see each other as neighbors and members of a shared community. It is beautiful. Even small acts like thanking the lady guiding traffic at the gas lines (which were VERY long this week at the few stores that still had gas) are expressions of such beauty.
3. We Are So Very Fragile
In the midst of this horrific week I also have been navigating a recovery from eye surgery. Frustratingly, the surgery didn’t go as well as I had hoped and was led to believe would be the easy outcome by the physicians. My vision is much worse than it was before the surgery and I feel like I have a pair of reading glasses on all the time - I see things up close clearly, but everything in the distance is blurry. I also have shimmering and weird flashes in my periphery, which are unbelievably distracting. Anyway, it sucks. I wish I had not had the surgery. But, while I am dealing with this, a friend of mine just had major surgery yesterday, another friend is preparing for major cancer surgery next week, yet another friend got diagnosed with a different form of cancer, and still another friend is in the midst of continued treatment for his own battle with lingering illness. The point is that even if there had not been a hurricane, the human condition is defined by vulnerability. And yet, even the strongest among us are unable to withstand flood waters, mudslides, and falling trees.
It can feel as if it is pointless even to try to withstand what inevitably will knock us over. We are fragile. We are flawed. We are finite. This is just part of the deal.
4. We Are Not Trivial
Despite the continued reality of the problem of evil, the kindness that shines through our fear, and the fragility that defines our condition, we are not trivial beings. We are not mere objects to be washed away when the waters rise. Our existence is significant. Our lives matter. Our love refuses to allow evil the last word.
I have often cited my former professor and friend, David Kangas’s, words that he sent in an email the day he found out that he had stage 4 cancer, but I want to do so again here: “In the end there is the unmanagable, but we would be trivial beings without it.”
What David said that day continues to inspire me as I try to find the strength to get out of bed every day and continue to walk firmly in a world where the ground so easily can slip from beneath us. In my own way, however small and insignificant it is, the words with which I end every class I teach and every YouTube video I post are my attempt to remind us all of the fact that we our lives are not trivial. “I’ll see you tomorrow unless a piano falls on our head.” I say this, inspired by Kierkegaard and Kangas every single time, as a testament to the fact that hurricanes come and diagnoses happen and surgeries don’t always work out like we hoped. And yet here we are. It matters that we are here. It matters that we make the most of the time we have while we have it.
For those of you who are asking about ways you can help, my friend Mike Morrell has put together an incredible list of charities and organizations that are specifically focused on helping folks here in the Carolinas (specifically in hardest-hit Asheville and surrounding areas).
For this post, I will just leave the comment section unprompted. Let’s think together.
Interesting side note: Several people posted this week, "What good is your electric vehicle now?" It's a petty post that made a few folks feel snarkily superior for a few minutes. Until they realized that gasoline vehicles are of little use when gas stations are out of both power and gas. And when trees are blocking roads. Etc. etc. The reality is that our vulnerability frightens us, and the things to which we cling to avert it are often temporary. What we CAN cling to is the sense of community and purpose that brings out the worst in some--but the best in most--at times like this.
Excellent insights, putting recent events in real perspective. Thanks os much.