I'm back and things have been ....

I don't normally advertise when I'm going to be away -security and all that- but I'm sure more regular readers may not be surprised to discover I've been away. Now I could have blogged while away; there was internet access possible at various relatives' houses, but well, I just didn't get round to it for varying reasons. At least it demonstrates that my fear that I might be internet/blogging addicted may not be true; I just don't have anything better to do! -Or not!

Anyway what a time to be away: missing a major natural disaster and all sorts of interesting stuff on my regular haunts too. That's not to trivialise the tsunami stuff: it's actually pretty hard to respond blogwise to something like that without being trite or simply adding to the chorus of other voices expressing a range of reactions. What I think I most want to do with it is to reflect on the response and what it sys about how we humans organise our world. I have seen a few things that I will blog in due course on that.

Meantime how do I react?
On the issue of why; well I tend to agree with Rabbi Daniel Isaak of Oregon: ""The world has certain imperfections built into the natural order, and we have to live with them. The issue isn't 'Why did God do this to us?' but 'How do we human beings care for one another?" And also Orthodox Theologian Costas Kyriakides in Cyprus expressed a similar view.
"I personally don't attach any theological significance to this -- I listen to what the scientists say," he said. "God is always the fall guy. We incriminate Him completely unjustly."

I've just been reading Rowan Williams' Writing in the Dust which is reflecting on the twin towers atrocity. In it Bp. Rowan says something that I have long thought myself about such things; if God is to be dragged in to stop or mitigate directly every human evil, where would it end? It could only end with constant interfereance and the loss of any sense of order in the world and indeed of responsibility thereafter ... life as we know it would be impossible. In fact that's rather more than Rowan says but the basic point is shared. Though in another publication he says: "If we are to exist in an environment where we can live lives of productive work and consistent understanding – human lives as we know them – the world has to have a regular order and pattern of its own. Effects follow causes in a way that we can chart, and so can make some attempt at coping with. So there is something odd about expecting that God will constantly step in if things are getting dangerous. How dangerous do they have to be? How many deaths would be acceptable?" However, he goes on to say: "Sometimes a secular moralist may say in contemporary debates: "Nature is wasteful of life; we can't hold to absolute views of the value of every human organism." That is not an option for the believer. That is why for the believer the uniqueness of every sufferer in a disaster such as the present one is so especially harrowing. There are no "spare" lives." and I think that is an important rider to theodical perspectives.