When We Lose the Earth Under Our Feet: An Epilogue for Wayanad
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| Image Courtesy: Instagram |
The Wayanad landslides are covered thoroughly by national and international media. Social media is also contributing to sharing information about the activities that are happening there and also providing relief to the people who are in camps. Nothing more seems to be said about the landslides as such. However, damages happen on many levels, not just in the material sense. So I thought it was important to strike a sort of an epilogue, a tail-end remark on the mostly ignored issue of the faith and mental strength of the survivors. In my book Life After the Floods, I attempted to stress the point that psychological aid is required during relief operations that would ensure the complete and uncompromised survival of the affected. Today, looking at some of the counterintuitive attempts that I see on social media I would like to take a step ahead in this direction from what I have said in the book. Life After the Floods focused on the cultural as well as the psychological aspects of relief work. Here, I would like to unveil another aspect: the spiritual.
The district of Wayanad is situated next to Kannur district, where I hail from. The area where the landslides occurred is usually prone to such phenomena. However, to this magnitude, no one expected it. In such devastation, the usual question in a society like ours, in Kerala, would be, why pray or even acknowledge the presence of God? If He is good, He should have stopped the calamity from happening. But he didn’t. He did not just prevent the calamity, on the contrary, let all those people get sucked into the blanket of death. I have seen messages circulating in WhatsApp groups with a similar argument. One such message says, “No one would now ask to build a church, or a temple, or a mosque in that area. No one saw any of the Gods standing in the place of devastation, except rescue workers. It is the rescue workers that make the difference.” In the grand scheme of atheism, the problem of evil is at the centre stage. However, it’s a matter that theologians like St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas and the like have already debated and quashed. What would it mean to all of us when our brothers and sisters are killed without even a trace of their existence at the most unexpected hour? We need a deeper understanding of the issue rather than a noncommittal emotional response.
The whole of India empathises with Wayanad and its people. All over Kerala, people feel the emotional turmoil in the depths of their hearts. It is not just those who physically suffered the natural calamity that are suffering but all those who have heard of the devastating event. And in the wake of such a serious calamity and pain, stripping the rest of the people who are alive from their only remaining hope in God is an act of violence. It’s violence against those survivors, stripping them of their last resort, as the long journey of their remaining lives without their loved ones stares them in the face. Let those who are alive find their peace in God. Let those who have suffered open their minds to the possibility of God, keeping watch over the most precious wealth of all, the kingdom of heaven. Let us hope that all those souls lost to us on that fateful day, are now with our Lord, in their sweet repose in heaven, and see us down below here on the earth, bewailing our emptiness. Let us build a bridge of prayer to heaven, to provide ourselves the knowledge and confirmation that those who are dead, are now residing in their eternal home in heaven. This is our chance to heal our wounds, and find consolation.
Today, after my morning prayer, God sent me a message. It is to write something for the people of Wayanad, to those who are struggling to make sense of this calamity, this devastation, this gory dance of death. How can I? I thought to myself. I prayed and asked God for directions. Since I am following the Marian Covenant of Kreupasanam, I have found it easier to communicate with God. It has become not a matter of my merit but an acknowledgement of a simple reality that I am incapable of finding solutions to problems that I see around me. So I ask for God’s help, just like a child, a helpless infant, more precisely. I trust He will take me to places and show me how to deal with the problems that seem too big to solve. Today also, I was trusting in His trustworthiness. I prayed and opened the Bible randomly.
This is a method that I learned during my Covenant days. Several testimonies have been shared online about this method and how immensely efficient this method is in identifying God's will for many people. God speaks through scripture. In my case, it is not just the testimonies that convinced me but also the personal experience of how relevant and accurate the scriptural passages thus obtained are. For those who suffer in Wayanad landslides, I prayed for a scriptural consolation. I asked God to speak to them through me. I promised God that I would write about it. Then these verses opened in front of me:
Psalm 49:5–9 (NRSV):
5Why should I fear in times of trouble,
when the iniquity of my persecutors surrounds me,
6those who trust in their wealth
and boast of the abundance of their riches?
7Truly, no ransom avails for one’s life,
there is no price one can give to God for it.
8For the ransom of life is costly,
and can never suffice,
9that one should live on forever
and never see the grave.
It may not be easy to pray in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The human heart unconsciously seeks its refuge. The only true refuge is God. Therefore, a heart seeking consolation is also in the process of active prayer. The verses quoted above say that the ransom of life is costly and can never be enough when one covets eternal life. Who will pay the price for our life? God will. In fact, He already did, through the sufferings, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The cost of eternal life is Christ’s redemptive incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.
The rescue personnel who volunteered to help in the Wayanad landslides, those rescue people who are there as part of their duty, all of them are instruments in the hands of God. When we are bleary-eyed with tears of hopelessness, we often miss seeing the light in the chaos. Our beautiful neighbours from neighbouring districts, government personnel, and those who were already on site before outside help reached the location of landslides, all represent a miracle, a light, in the face of calamity. Their strength is our hope, their bodies are our strongholds, and their determination is our chance at survival. It is Christ, walking in many bodies being our strongholds, providing strength of hope, taking the cross upon Himself, to give us a chance at survival.
Our lives have passed on before our eyes as we were paralysed out of fear and uncertainty, since the 30th of July, like a swollen, discoloured river in the Monsoons. We were stunned at the pace of the devastation and its impact. We still are, as we say this. How long would it take us to come out of this tragedy? No one knows. No disaster management theory can calculate the time required to heal such a wound in the human psyche. Therefore, as we help the people of Wayanad with our material support, let us also not take away their faith. Let us be careful not to unsee God in action. He is with us, right now, as we speak. He is suffering alongside us. He is a good God. He is faithful. In His infinite justice and mercy, He may have different plans for those of our beloved ones who lost their lives in the landslides. But He does have a purpose. “God permits evil to bring about a greater good,” says Bishop Barron in his seminal work Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith. It may be presumptuous to assume He will reveal this purpose in a way convenient to us. It’s not radical or even relevant at this juncture to dismiss faith as some unimportant appendix in disillusionment. Let’s read the above Bible quote once again.
It asks a question in verse five: Why should I fear in times of trouble? Only a person who has organised one’s life around what is indestructible can ask such a question. What is truly indestructible in us? Perhaps nothing, as we can see, every day, the human life, body, wealth, each section of the human society, culture and civilisation is ripped to pieces by one disaster or the other. But there is one thing we can hope to hold onto- the love God has for us. Since it comes from God and one party in the bilateral feeling exists outside of the human realm, it is indestructible. I understand that for many of us, to simply acknowledge that God loves us, is a difficult task. Let’s not lose courage. I would like to conclude with another quotation from The Bible.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 4-7)
Love is at its majestic display, defeating all the odds, in all its beauty, in the way the people of Kerala have joined hands to help those stricken by the landslides in Wayanad. There is a larger purpose here, a greater purpose for all those sacrifices, embracing the broken hills of Wayanad, in a redemptive gesture, Christ in action, in and through all of us.
when the iniquity of my persecutors surrounds me,
6those who trust in their wealth
and boast of the abundance of their riches?
7Truly, no ransom avails for one’s life,
there is no price one can give to God for it.
8For the ransom of life is costly,
and can never suffice,
9that one should live on forever
and never see the grave.
It may not be easy to pray in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The human heart unconsciously seeks its refuge. The only true refuge is God. Therefore, a heart seeking consolation is also in the process of active prayer. The verses quoted above say that the ransom of life is costly and can never be enough when one covets eternal life. Who will pay the price for our life? God will. In fact, He already did, through the sufferings, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The cost of eternal life is Christ’s redemptive incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.
The rescue personnel who volunteered to help in the Wayanad landslides, those rescue people who are there as part of their duty, all of them are instruments in the hands of God. When we are bleary-eyed with tears of hopelessness, we often miss seeing the light in the chaos. Our beautiful neighbours from neighbouring districts, government personnel, and those who were already on site before outside help reached the location of landslides, all represent a miracle, a light, in the face of calamity. Their strength is our hope, their bodies are our strongholds, and their determination is our chance at survival. It is Christ, walking in many bodies being our strongholds, providing strength of hope, taking the cross upon Himself, to give us a chance at survival.
Our lives have passed on before our eyes as we were paralysed out of fear and uncertainty, since the 30th of July, like a swollen, discoloured river in the Monsoons. We were stunned at the pace of the devastation and its impact. We still are, as we say this. How long would it take us to come out of this tragedy? No one knows. No disaster management theory can calculate the time required to heal such a wound in the human psyche. Therefore, as we help the people of Wayanad with our material support, let us also not take away their faith. Let us be careful not to unsee God in action. He is with us, right now, as we speak. He is suffering alongside us. He is a good God. He is faithful. In His infinite justice and mercy, He may have different plans for those of our beloved ones who lost their lives in the landslides. But He does have a purpose. “God permits evil to bring about a greater good,” says Bishop Barron in his seminal work Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith. It may be presumptuous to assume He will reveal this purpose in a way convenient to us. It’s not radical or even relevant at this juncture to dismiss faith as some unimportant appendix in disillusionment. Let’s read the above Bible quote once again.
It asks a question in verse five: Why should I fear in times of trouble? Only a person who has organised one’s life around what is indestructible can ask such a question. What is truly indestructible in us? Perhaps nothing, as we can see, every day, the human life, body, wealth, each section of the human society, culture and civilisation is ripped to pieces by one disaster or the other. But there is one thing we can hope to hold onto- the love God has for us. Since it comes from God and one party in the bilateral feeling exists outside of the human realm, it is indestructible. I understand that for many of us, to simply acknowledge that God loves us, is a difficult task. Let’s not lose courage. I would like to conclude with another quotation from The Bible.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 4-7)
Love is at its majestic display, defeating all the odds, in all its beauty, in the way the people of Kerala have joined hands to help those stricken by the landslides in Wayanad. There is a larger purpose here, a greater purpose for all those sacrifices, embracing the broken hills of Wayanad, in a redemptive gesture, Christ in action, in and through all of us.
__Anu Lal
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