I appreciated the picture of humans responding to disaster that concludes this short description of the Mexico City earthquake, “Living in Mexico City Is a Perpetual Dare.” It’s overwhelming to read the news these past two months, with major hurricanes causing major flooding in Houston, Louisiana, Florida, and elsewhere. We saw the wreckage of those disasters, and now this, in Mexico City.
In the mud and suffering, though, we see humans in motion to help, responding to the motions of nature with motions of kindness, emotions causing blindness to class and other differences, notions inclined to self-centeredness set aside.
Human flourishing is not the absence of disaster but to seek the good of others in the midst of disaster.
We’ve gotten a fair amount of pushback from viewers of one of our Art of Life panels, “Suffering…better than abortion.” Incredulous, they ask, fully absorbing the ethos of the times, how could suffering be better than dying? Yet, the proof is in the pudding, isn’t it? We simply watch and attend to the truth that appears to us out of these pictures. Humans have this ability to bring into the world an other-worldly beauty, a whisper of God’s life among us, when we respond with grace to our suffering, when we respond to other’s suffering, by being willing to suffer more ourselves.
Human Beings Matter More 