Disasters and calamities

I WAS actually having a seminar in Laguna the weekend Typhoon Ondoy came and dumped his ocean-sized rains. It started pouring Friday afternoon, gathering strength as hours passed by. The whole night, he turned into a lashing fury that kept me awake. When is he going to stop, I asked.

Saturday came and Ondoy became even nastier. The whole day, we were all kept indoors, held captive by him. Some of those expected to join in the seminar could not make it, obviously stuck in the halted traffic. Later we learned they spent the whole night on the road, unable to go back to their places.

We turned on the TV, then we saw the quickly spreading extent of the calamity, and the damage and misery it brought. Our jaws dropped and shock deadened us to the sound and fury outside.

We were frozen by the overwhelming images. The sensation was like being in a shipwreck. I’m sure that’s when we started to pray in earnest, and to think of what else to do.

I called some relatives in Manila. One said her basement was already filled with water. Another said she had to vacate her house. The rest said they were a bit lucky since their houses were on higher grounds, but that they were suffering for the others less fortunate.

We went to the Internet, and saw on YouTube the unfolding drama in many areas affected. This fueled wrenching feelings: pain, desires to be there with the people, to suffer with them, to help, to pray, to ask for forgiveness, and a blur of others.

Able to go back to Cebu on Sunday, I immediately noticed the muted suffering of everyone, visibly affected by the calamity. I was happy to note the genuine reaction of concern and generosity, the spontaneous show of basic humanity, fraternity and solidarity.

But more bad news came. Two more typhoons were expected to come in, like mines floating on air toward our direction. I received desperate requests for prayers, and for forming prayer brigades. I did what I could do.

One supertyphoon came but apparently only brushed us slightly. What a relief! Was it because of our prayer? I don’t know. What we know is that we prayed with all our heart and it just passed us by, despite the forecast.

Then there was this earthquake and tsunami in Samoa, then two earthquakes in Indonesia, leaving thousands of dead and unspeakable damage. What’s happening?

In the papers, views of people came in. Some started blaming the government and so on. Others started theorizing and speculating about the causes.

Some have again brought up the angle of the global warming effect. Fine. For sure, each one has a point or two to make. We are thankful and appreciative for all these, and we will evaluate them slowly and thoroughly in their own time.

There’s just one thing I would like to highlight in this absorbing development. While we can point to the natural causes to this drama, let’s not downplay, much less forget, the human and especially the spiritual and supernatural dimension that it clearly has.

We should not just stop at the level of the natural sciences, of the socio-political sciences involved. We have to take in the inputs of our faith and consider them the more crucial elements. These disasters are no mere natural events.

This is of course complicated, and we just have to be most careful and prudent in our considerations. What is indispensable to know is that God is our creator and our father. Everything depends on him, and his mysterious providence of love, justice and mercy is for always, not on and off.

We need to be on our knees, pray and do penance for our sins. These disasters and calamities can be a call for a deeper conversion on our part.

We cannot deny that crimes against God and against humanity continue to take place. In fact, just recently, I learned that our Congress is poised to approve the immoral Reproductive Health Bill.

For all its proclaimed advantages, this bill with its rotten spirit will bring our sinfulness to a deeper level, graver than all the corruption we have committed so far! This goes more directly against God than against the people.

We can do two things with disasters and calamities—either get stuck with their destructive nature or make use of them to effect conversion and transformation, like a seed that has to die on the ground in order to germinate.