Posts tagged ‘Wildfire’
Tragedy in California
Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture
They are the worst wildfires in the history of the state of California.
Nearly 250,000 acres have burned. 79 people have been killed. Sadly, that number will likely climb as first responders continue their search through the rubble these fires have left behind. The town of Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada foothills, has been especially hard hit, with nearly the whole town being destroyed.
California has had a rough go of it lately. Just two weeks ago, the state endured another tragedy as a gunman opened fire at a country bar filled with college students in Thousand Oaks, killing twelve. The shooter was a Marine Corps veteran who appears to have had all sorts of mental health issues and was, at one time, on the cusp of being committed.
The sheer number of tragedies that roll in through each news cycle can begin to feel overwhelming. For each town that is charred and person that is shot, we ask, “How can we stop this from happening?” Answers to this perennial and pressing question seem to elude us. When tragedies do strike, we are thankful for firefighters who risk their lives on the frontlines of massive and unpredictable blazes and officers who run into hails of bullets rather than away from them. Proactively, we are instructed to keep dry brush away from homes in fire zones and guns out of the hands of mentally disturbed people. But despite our best efforts, the tragedies keep coming. Tragedies, even if they can be somewhat mitigated and managed by us, cannot be successfully stayed by us.
On the surface, the California fires and the California shooting seem to be two different types of tragedies. One is a natural disaster. The other is man-caused carnage. Below the surface, however, these two tragedies share a common core: sin. The fires remind us that the sin that came into the world with Adam and Eve has disordered and distorted the world in profound and frightening ways. The mass shooting reminds us that sin is not just in the world. It is in us. It’s not just that we cannot eradicate the sin that distorts creation; it’s that we cannot even kill the sin in ourselves.
The message of Christianity reminds us that, even as societies scramble to address sin, we need a victory over sin that we cannot gain for ourselves. Sin needs not only our noble actions and timely reactions, but a perfect transaction that exchanges our sad sin for a better righteousness. This is the transaction Christ makes for us on the cross.
Tragedies are sure to continue. And we should be thankful for those fighting on the front lines of those tragedies. But we can also be hopeful that tragedy’s time is short, for sin’s defeat is certain.
2017 in Review
2017 is officially history. And what a whirlwind of a year it was. As we gear up for what will more than likely be another fast-paced year in 2018, it is worth it to reflect on some of the biggest news stories of this past year and ask ourselves, “What lessons can we learn from what we’ve experienced?” After all, though the news cycle is continually churning out new tragedies, scandals, stresses, and messes to capture our immediate attention, the lessons we learn from these stories should linger, even if the stories themselves do not. Wisdom demands it. So, here is my year in review for 2017.
January
By far, the biggest story of January was the inauguration of Donald J. Trump into the office of President of the United States. After a campaign that was both contentious and raucous, many were on edge when he was inaugurated. As our nation increasingly fractures along partisan lines, Mr. Trump’s presidency continues to inspire both sycophantic adoration and overwrought incredulity.
February
A debate over immigration led the headlines in February as fallout over President Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from nations with known terror sympathies – including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen – came fast and fierce. The president’s travel ban was, until very recently, the subject of endless court battles.
March
The headlines jumped across the Atlantic in March when Khalid Masood, a British-born citizen apparently inspired by online terrorist propaganda, drove an SUV into pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge, leaving four dead and forty injured. After crashing his vehicle outside Parliament, he ran, fatally stabbing a police officer before he was fatally shot by law enforcement.
April
In one of the strangest stories of the year, Vice-President Mike Pence was both criticized and, at times, even mocked for refusing to dine alone with any woman who was not his wife or one of his close relatives. Many people interpreted his boundary as needlessly prudish. Mr. Pence viewed it as a wise way to guard his integrity.
May
Another story of terror echoed through the headlines in May, this time in Manchester, England, when suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated himself at an Ariana Grande concert leaving 22 dead and 59 wounded.
June
The terrorist attacks continued in June as seven were killed and another 48 were wounded in London when a vehicle barreled into pedestrians on London Bridge. Three attackers then emerged to go on a stabbing rampage. Also, Steve Scalise, the majority whip for the House of Representatives, was seriously wounded when 66-year-old James Hodgkinson opened fire during a congressional baseball game.
July
President Trump and Pope Francis offered to provide medical care for the family of Charlie Gard, a baby born with mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. A judge in the UK, where the Gard family resides, ordered that Charlie be taken off life support because he saw no hope for Charlie’s recovery, which prompted the president’s and the pope’s overtures. Charlie was eventually removed from life support and passed away.
August
James Alex Fields killed one person and injured nineteen when he plowed his Dodge Challenger into a group of counter-protesters at an event called “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was protesting a decision by the city to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Hurricane Harvey also ripped through Texas, devastating the Coastal Bend, the Houston area, and the Golden Triangle on the Texas-Louisiana border.
September
Hurricane Irma churned its way across Cuba, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Barbuda, and, finally, Florida, leaving mass devastation in its wake.
October
The worst mass shooting in American history took place when James Paddock broke the window in his hotel suite at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas and fired onto a crowd of country concert goers below, killing 59 and injuring hundreds. In a much more heartwarming moment, the Christian Church celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
November
On the heels of one mass shooting came another – this time at a tiny church outside San Antonio in Sutherland Springs. 26 people were killed when a gunman opened fire on the congregants inside in the middle of a Sunday service. A sexual assault epidemic also broke wide open, as man after man – from Hollywood moguls to politicians to television news personalities – were revealed to have engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior.
December
Devastating wildfires ripped through southern California, scorching thousands of acres and forcing hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate.
These are only a few of the stories from 2017. There are, of course, countless others that I did not mention. So, what is there to learn from all these stories?
First, when I compare this year in review with others I have written, I am struck by how, in the words of Solomon, there really is “nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Other years have featured other terrorist attacks, natural disasters, mass shootings, and political upheavals. Even the freshly revealed charges of sexual assault chronicle things that happened years, if not decades, ago. The news cycle seems to have a certain, sordid rhythm to it. The news may be saddening, but I’m not so sure it’s surprising.
Second, if anyone ever needed a bit of empirical verification of the biblical doctrine of human depravity, the news cycle would be a good place to find it. Both the drumbeat of dreariness in our news cycle and the fact that we, as a matter of course, are often more riveted by horrific stories than we are by uplifting ones are indications that something is seriously wrong in our world.
Finally, at the same time the news cycle testifies to human depravity, it must not be forgotten that, regardless of how bad the news cycle gets during any given year, hope seems to spring eternal for a better set of stories in the coming year. Yes, we may brace ourselves for the worst. But this cannot stop us from hoping for the best. Such a hope is a testimony to the fact that God has “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) – an eternity when everything that is wrong in this age will be set right in the next. We cannot help but yearn for that age to come.
So, here’s to hoping for a grand 2018. Yes, the news cycle may indeed take a turn toward the sour, but we also know that God has promised a new age to come, even if we do not yet know its day or hour.
Christmas When Disaster Strikes
Though wildfires in Southern California are not an unusual occurrence, the ones now tearing through the Los Angeles area are truly historic. Hundreds of thousands residents are under mandatory evacuations, hundreds of thousands of acres have been burned, and many of the fires are not contained. The fires are effortlessly jumping major freeways, including the 405, and engulfing everything in their path.
The stories emerging from the wildfires are heartbreaking. On NBC Nightly News, images and stories of grieving and tearful people who have lost their homes have been commonplace. In one image, a man stands on his roof staring down a massive wildfire with a garden hose in hand. He doesn’t even look hopeful. He knows it’s futile.
Even as I see tears and hear sobs, it is difficult for me to imagine how these people must feel. At a time of year that is known for its bounty of gifts, there are thousands who have suffered the loss of so much.
One of my favorite Christmas carols is “Joy to the World.” Its famously bouncy melody, however, can mask its realistic estimation of the trials of this world:
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
This world, the carol concedes, is full of sins, sorrows, and thorns. And yet, the hope of Christmas is that a Savior has been born who “comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.” The tension of this lyric is thick. A catastrophe like the California fires is certainly a result of the curse – a world broken by sin. Natural disasters were never meant to be part of God’s good creation. But God comes into this world, cursed by sin, to make His blessings flow. In other words, even in the midst of the fires, God’s blessings are not withheld, but bestowed. But when you’re fighting a massive fire with a garden hose, God’s blessings can be awfully tough to spot.
Christmas can help us see how God’s blessings arrive, even when all we see is the curse. God’s blessings arrive not in brash and bold and bawdy ways, but in small and poor and humble ways. They arrive in little towns like Bethlehem. They arrive through peasant people like Mary and Joseph. They arrive with a baby who sleeps in some hay. In other words, they arrive in ways that are easy to miss in a world where the curse looms large. But those who take the time to see these blessings cannot help but be changed by them.
One story coming out of the California fires involves a family whose mansion burned to the ground last week. When firefighters ordered an evacuation of the area shortly before the fires engulfed this family’s home, one firefighter asked the homeowner, “If we could save just one thing, what would you want it to be?” The homeowner replied, “Please save my Christmas tree for my kids because it’s got so many memories.” The family no longer has a home. But they still have their tree. They still have a reminder of this season and what it’s all about – the greatest blessing of God’s Son. The curse may have taken this family’s house, but it did not take this family’s Christmas.
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
He really does – even if it’s in the smallest of ways.
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