Post Deluge Toughts

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” - (Galatians 6:7 NIV)

When my family and I were still on assignment in Vientiane, Laos, we had been planning to stay at my wife’s home in Cainta, Rizal in the Philippines. Ever since her father died, my wife had understandably become worried for her widowed mother. Staying in Cainta would not only have allowed us to be with her, but it would have also meant the convenience of not renting a separate place of our own.

It sounded like a good plan back then. Until Tropical Storm Ondoy, the Philippine local name for Typhoon Ketsana, hit the Philippine Capital and its surrounds.

Cainta is located in a valley, and has traditionally been prone to flooding during the rainy seasons. My wife would tell me how she had become used to having their house ankle-deep in water during her younger years.

Ondoy was different however. It completely inundated Cainta with muddy and trash-laden water that was over ten feet deep in some places. My wife’s family household helper who was staying at their house at that time had to be rescued with a makeshift flotation device made out of empty water containers by the neighbors.

It took months to clean the house from the mud and debris resulting from the flood. I remember my mother-in-law telling us over the phone that it was like suffering from a house fire. Most of their belongings were destroyed or ruined.

My wife’s family was lucky. Many had lost their own lives.

As a Christian, I’m not supposed to believe in luck. Luck is contradictory to the idea of an omniscient and omnipotent Creator. Some would even say that the concept of luck is blasphemy against God.

The question foremost on a Christian mind during times of calamity like this would be:

“How can God allow such suffering to exist?”

Fast forward almost three years after Ondoy, present time.

The Philippine Capital was again hit by non-stop rains resulting in massive flooding and landslides in some areas.

Ironically, the rains were not even part of a full blown Philippine typhoon. The eye of the storm was outside the country’s jurisdiction. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, more commonly known as PAGASA, didn’t even assign a local name to it.

But that didn’t stop the rains from wreaking havoc on lives and property.

My wife’s house was again inundated with water, though fortunately, the water had only reached thigh level. Still, my mother-in-law and her helper had to evacuate to the neighbor’s second floor for three days.

Our family only spent the past Saturday helping clean up the house.

Again, others weren’t so lucky. Though the death toll was thankfully much lower than that during the aftermath of Ondoy, thousands upon thousands had to evacuate their homes to live in crowded public schools and warehouses designated as evacuation centers. Some of them will not be returning to their homes, as their houses didn’t survive the flooding.

I remember watching an interview with one such family on television. The father, a taxi-driver, was recounting how they witnessed seeing their house and all their accumulated possessions get washed away by the flood. I remember being awestruck by the fact that he was smiling as he was being interviewed. Without batting an eyelash, he concluded the interview by saying, “We are still blessed by God. I still have my taxi with which I can still earn a living. And most importantly, we are all still alive and together as a family.”

I imagined a lot more people would be cursing God, rather than being thankful to him as a result of this calamity.

But as it was, none of the people I saw being interviewed on television ever said anything against God.

Granted, it could have been coincidence. It’s entirely possible that I would have missed such an interview. Also, our media might have deliberately filtered the interviews to only reflect the positive ones.

And lastly, being a pre-dominantly Catholic Christian country, my countrymen might simply be responding as a result of hundreds of years of Roman Catholic indoctrination and cultural upbringing.

I would be the first to admit that my countrymen can be a very selfish and inconsiderate lot. One need only try to drive around the capital a few days to witness this firsthand. Almost everyone drives as if they own the roads. Even after almost twenty years of driving here (and three years of being a born-again Christian), I still find it a challenge not to lose my temper when I travel by car.

And I could list many more such un-Christian like behavior from my countrymen: acts of drunkenness, carousing, gambling, adultery, extortion, robbery, kidnapping, violence, rape, murder, even infanticide. I’ve made a resolution not to watch the news as much as possible for fear of being sent into a deep depression over my country’s state of affairs.

But whatever self-righteousness I have was silenced this past week by the images of generosity and self-sacrifice my countrymen had for the victims of the flooding.

In a matter of days, volunteers and millions of pesos worth of donations and relief goods flooded the evacuation centers and affected areas, most of which came from my countrymen. As far as I know, our Government didn’t even need to request for international assistance.

The Messiah once said that a tree will always be recognized by its fruit. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit.

If my countrymen can set aside their differences and perform acts of charity like this, then there may yet be hope for this seemingly withered branch of Abraham’s faith.

God has not forsaken the Philippines just yet.

That being said however, there is no denying the fact that a lot of the devastation from the flooding could have been averted. Deforestation, wanton dumping of garbage, poor urban planning, and blatant politics are being cited by the experts as the main culprits. These aren’t “acts of God”. These are acts of people. Which means that we can do something about it.

It is both timely and ironic that I was required to attend a weeklong seminar on Environmental Policies, Conservation and Protection, a week before the rains and flooding hit our country. Almost all of our speakers and lecturers had the same conclusion to say: it is human behavior that’s the cause of our problems.

This led me to conclude that God’s greatest dilemma is not fixing the earth. He can make a new heavens and a new earth anytime. His greatest dilemma, is fixing the human heart.

An atheist friend of mine said that humankind does not have full, unrestricted free will. He’s right. We don’t. If we did, then we wouldn’t have to reap the consequences of our choices and behavior.

But that does not change the fact that we still have the power of choice. Any human who claims otherwise is equating him/herself with the creatures of instinct: unthinking beasts that are destined to be “caught and destroyed.” – (2 Peter 2:12)

These are the people who have no regard for consequence, either for themselves or for their fellow humans.

Humankind is destined to be more than that.

As a person who is fond of science, I would argue that millions of years of evolution should not have produced consciousness in humans if we didn’t have the power of choice.

As a Christian, I say that God made us humans in His own image: spiritual beings in the flesh capable of making rational, unselfish and loving decisions. As the Psalmist has written:

"I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.' - (Psalms 82:6 NIV)

I had written at the start of this year that the year 2012 would be an interesting year. God is sending His wake-up calls almost non-stop already. How much more does He need to send so that humanity will collectively realize that we are more than just mindless, unthinking beasts that will strip our planet of its resources to our destruction?

The year isn’t finished yet.