THERE is a recent story going around entitled “God Whispers” about a pilot who flew the last plane out of Palu, Indonesia before it was hit by an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude on the Richter scale, causing a devastating tsunami that currently has a death toll of over a thousand people.
The pilot talks about feeling uneasy when he landed in Palu, about hearing “a voice in his heart” telling him to hurry. So he instructed his crew to take a short break, then requested permission from the control tower to leave 3 minutes earlier.
During takeoff, he sped up the plane and felt the plane swaying left and right before leaving the ground. He would learn later, upon arriving at his destination in Ujung Pandang, that an earthquake and tsunami had hit Palu and that he had taken off in the nick of time just when the ground began to shake. Many on the ground, including the official at the control tower who made sure they had taken off safely, had died. The death toll is still rising as of this writing as rescue teams scramble to look for survivors.
The article concludes with a reminder to take a lesson from the captain about how important it is to “hear the voice of God.”
While I am happy about the pilot being alive and able to fly the 140 passengers in his aircraft to safety right in the nick of time, using this story to impart the religious message of learning to listen God’s voice seems rather insensitive to the relatives and loved ones of the many who perished or were injured in the disaster.
Were they unable to hear God’s whispers? Or did God even nudge them at all like he did to the pilot? Or were they somehow more deserving of death or suffering? These questions haunt those left in the wake of the destruction.
It’s like an incident a few years ago when a typhoon that was supposedly going to hit us suddenly veered north. You could see people cheering about how their prayers were answered, how mighty God’s hand was, and how loving...until the news came out that this other country had been badly hit and so many were injured or killed.
Imagine having a loved one on vacation in that country as a casualty, then hearing someone else praising God’s hand for swatting the hurricane out of the way.
Disasters are a time to come together and help each other, to realize our shared humanity, to comfort others in their grief. Yes, we can always express gratitude for being spared but let’s not use it as an object lesson for pontificating or exhorting others to be more “godly”.
To do so would be just plain insensitive.
Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.