When Bad Things Happen to Good People

God stands for justice, for fairness, for compassion. For me, the earthquake is not an “act of God.” The act of God is the courage of people to rebuild their lives after the earthquake,

forgive the world for not being perfect, to forgive God for not making a better world, to reach out to the people around us, and to go on living despite it all.

Their prayers helped them tap hidden reserves of faith and courage which were not available to them before.

Human beings live in a world of good and bad, and that makes our lives painful and complicated. Animals don’t; their lives are much simpler, without the moral problems and moral decisions that we humans have to face. Categories of “good” and “bad” don’t really exist for animals. They can be helpful or messy, obedient or disobedient, but they can’t

You need to share with them, to talk to them, to let them comfort you. You need to be reminded that you are still alive, and part of a world of life.”

Where do I get my sense of outrage and indignation, my instinctive response of sympathy when I read in the paper about a total stranger who has been hurt by life? Don’t I get these things from God? Doesn’t He plant in me a little bit of His own divine outrage at injustice and oppression, just as He did for the prophets of the Bible? Isn’t

Neither, as we have suggested already, can we ask God to change laws of nature for our benefit, to make fatal conditions less fatal or to change the inexorable course of an illness.

She is experiencing fear and fatigue, but it comes out as impatience and anger.

When miracles occur, and people beat the odds against their survival, we would be well advised to bow our heads in thanks at the presence of a miracle, and not think that our prayers, contributions, or abstentions are what did