Musings on the Flood

I read this the other day and felt that it could very well be the best thing writ­ten on the flood that plagued the Metro. I like it because it does not jus­tify nor spir­i­tu­al­ize any­thing about it; while at the same time, it keeps its eye on the God who suf­fers with us in all these calamities.

It’s by Fr. Jett Vil­larin, Pres­i­dent of my alma mater, Xavier Uni­ver­sity (where I went to for high school).

Ser­vant
GOD’S WORD TODAY By Jose Ramon T. Vil­larin, S.J. (The Philip­pine Star)
Octo­ber 18, 2009

One of my young friends from Olan­des (a reset­tle­ment area named after the low­lands of Hol­land ) along the Marik­ina River , where I used to work week­ends, wrote me: “lahat ng ating mga pik­tyur, … lahat ng mga antigo mong sulat sa akin mula noong 1989, tinan­gay at tin­unaw ng baha. iniyakan namin yun. pero sig­uro papel lang naman ang mga iyon. ang tunay na alaala nasa puso at isip pa din. di matatan­gay ng kahit anong bagyo. ang pagkakaibi­gan di mailu­lunod ng baha.

“At sig­uro ang isa pa talaga nam­ing iniyakan ay ang pag­danas ng hirap ng marami sa mga kak­i­lala natin doon. pero kasama sa pag-iyak ang paghanga sa tatag at tapang ng mga tao sa kabila ng mga gani­tong pangyayari.

“Yung tatay ko kakatawa, nung isang araw sabi sa akin: anak, wala na tay­ong tv. di na ako makanood ng telenobela…”

I remem­ber that area being hit by a great flood in 1988. One of us even got to ride an amphibi­ous truck to dis­trib­ute relief to the weary set­tlers of Olan­des. The trauma and the suf­fer­ing even­tu­ally set­tled like sludge to the floor of the people’s mem­ory. Three weeks ago, and more than two decades later, the sludge was agi­tated once more. The floods came back with greater feroc­ity and this time, it wasn’t just Olan­des anymore.

“The Lord was pleased to crush him in infir­mity.” What was the prophet Isa­iah think­ing? To be crushed in infir­mity, I can take. But to be pleased? If the Lord was delighted recently to send two typhoons our way, one tsunami over Samoa, and a dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake to Indone­sia , what then is the point of turn­ing our gaze heav­en­ward? What are we to hope for or believe in? I can­not make sense of the suf­fer­ing just as I can­not believe in a sadis­tic and malev­o­lent God who derives plea­sure from see­ing us help­lessly drawn into a vor­tex of sor­row and death.

Suf­fer­ing steals the words and wind out of us. We try pathet­i­cally to make easy sense of the sor­row by invok­ing a vague notion of jus­tice: neg­a­tive things hap­pen for the sake of par­ity, a state of affairs in which karma con­ve­niently restores things to proper bal­ance. Jus­tice, fair­ness, par­ity. The ancient lex tal­io­nis: an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth. Bal­ance, deter­rence, equi­lib­rium. Some­one in face­book inter­preted the plight of Luzon as penance and pun­ish­ment for Luzon ’s sin­ful­ness. Gikastigo, as the Visayans would say, even if every­one knows that the rains of heaven fall on the just and the unjust.

Be wary of such easy answers that ratio­nal­ize suf­fer­ing, even if ran­dom­ness is repelling. When you see images of whole vil­lages buried in a land­slide, if you are hon­est, you know that the karmic equa­tion or equi­lib­rium does not hold.

Of course, there are tech­ni­cal answers. The phys­i­cal world we live in is as imper­fect and unfin­ished as we are. What we are see­ing is a worked up Pacific Ring of Fire shak­ing those tec­tonic shelves under­wa­ter, and warm, unsta­ble air over the West­ern Pacific stir­ring up storms. These non-linear, chaotic processes describe a world that can be as sen­si­tive and unpre­dictable as we are. Com­pli­cated and incom­plete, these tech­ni­cal answers do not even satisfy.

Admit­tedly, the adjec­tives “imper­fect”, “unfin­ished”, “sen­si­tive” are per­son­i­fied images of an evolv­ing world. I use them because I do not think it pos­si­ble to envis­age a per­fect and fin­ished world devoid of us and dis­con­nected from the action of heaven. Even Eden had us in the begin­ning. The divine and human long­ing is still to have us return to Paradise .

But how are we to return to Eden given the imper­fec­tion, the sen­si­tiv­i­ties and unpre­dictabil­i­ties not only of the nat­ural world but of the human heart as well?

It is to this pos­si­bil­ity of redemp­tion that the prophet directs his prophecy: “If he gives his life as an offer­ing for sin, he shall see his descen­dants in a long life, and the will of the LORD shall be accom­plished through him.” Then we real­ize from his words who the prophet was think­ing of: an anointed One, a ser­vant who will suf­fer at our hands, and whose suf­fer­ing will be trans­fig­ured as on offer­ing for the for­give­ness of our sins, which sins have already wounded us more deeply in this imper­fect world.

As we scram­ble to recover from the ruins, may our des­o­la­tion turn to con­tri­tion, and from con­tri­tion to greater resolve. Let our people’s suf­fer­ing be not in vain as we mar­shal the lit­tle resources that we have away from the white ele­phants and polit­i­cal pay­loads that are the usual fare in and out of elec­tion sea­son. Let this tragedy lead us to the things that have always demanded urgent action: jobs, food, health, edu­ca­tion, hous­ing, and the wise use of our land and waterways.

May we become who we truly are: icons and images of the suf­fer­ing One, who “did not come to be served but to serve and give his life in ran­som for many.” Thus becom­ing ser­vants of the One suf­fer­ing ser­vant, we can then watch telen­ov­e­las at the end of a servant’s day, to our heart’s delight, with less fear of the dan­gers that stalk our bro­ken yet beau­ti­ful world.