God's Hand

The school bus filled with children that did not crash into the river when the I35 bridge collapsed was lifted from the crash site yesterday. It's removal prompted this response from a bystander:

"God was taking care of them because that bus could have gone right over the side," said Barb Tangen of Fridley as she stared Sunday at what was left of the bridge. "It was so close to where that semi ended up. I know God's hand when I see it."

With 52 children and 9 adults on board, it is certainly fortunate that the bus didn't end up in the river. A scope of the tragedy would have been vastly magnified. As it is, it is amazing that more people didn't perish.

Still, nine are dead including a pregnant mother and her child and a 20 year old man with Downs Syndrome. His mother is among the 4 still missing and presumed drowned. Where, I wonder, was God's hand in their deaths. Did God pick some to spare and some to go? How much was God involved in this tragedy? Did he know it was coming and allow it to happen? Did he plan it out beforehand? Did he have his eye off the ball; afterall there are monumental tragedies unfolding in Iraq and Darfur.

There are many folks who believe that God is in control of all of this. Most do not blame God for what goes wrong; they reason that God has given us free will and we have chosen Sin (not little sins but the big original kind) and the world is the way it is - profoundly messed up - because of that. But God can and occasionally does intervene to save or punish. And God, they believe, will eventually "return" for a final apocalyptic drama.

I think that if God could intervene to save a pregnant mother and her child from drowning, but chooses not to, then God is a mean, capricious God. I simply don't believe that there is a God who is up there or out there and in control of everything. Many people, I know find a belief in this kind of God comforting, but it has never spoken to either my heart or my mind.

God is the name we give to the love that is never exhausted by the imperfect expressions of it we know in our lives; God is the name we give to the source of our passion for peace and justice that will not let us rest as long as one person is dying of hunger or war or any other form of human-caused suffering. God is the name we give for the place pregnant mothers and children who died too soon (and everyone else too) go to in our hearts as we grieve for their loss, celebrate their lives, and honor them by living our lives in a worthy way.

It's not what we believe about a divine being but the way we live our lives that makes our faith real. We are God's hands.

Photo by Jerry Holt , Star Tribune