ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, Jan. 21 2010

Hope in the ruins of Haiti
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

We all know the proximate causes for the earthquake that devastated Haiti last
week: shifting tectonic plates, crumbling infrastructure and a mix of
historical, political and cultural factors that have rendered the poor island
nation uniquely vulnerable to calamity.

Metaphysical causes for the disaster — answers to the big questions of why
here, why now? — are more difficult to discern. Not that there has been any
shortage of glib explanations on offer.

Actor Danny Glover blamed the 7.0-magnitude tremor on U.S. inaction on global
warming, suggesting in a recent television interview that it was Mother
Nature's angry retort to an ineffectual Copenhagen Climate Summit. Radio
Netherlands Worldwide reports that Queen Djehami of Allada, a town in the
African republic of Benin, believes the quake resulted from Haitians' failure
to perform voodoo sacrifices to appease angry spirits.

Most famously and maddeningly of all, televangelist Pat Robertson told his CBN
audience that Haiti's heartbreaking misfortune could be traced to a curse that
began with a centuries-old "pact to the devil" performed by the nation's
founders. His remarks provoked indignation from the press room of the White
House to the shores of Port-au-Prince, where an estimated 200,000 have died and
millions more are struggling — and praying — for survival.

Most Christian leaders have rejected Robertson's paint-by-numbers theodicy,
preferring to remind their flocks that Christians worship a loving God willing
to suffer with and for his people, even as he sometimes permits suffering for
reasons we cannot fully comprehend. As St. Louis native and New York Archbishop
Timothy Dolan said in a recent interview, "Haiti is the broken, bloodied body
of Jesus in the arms of his blessed Mother, crying out to the world now for aid
and assistance."

That cry is being answered, and Americans are leading the way. For all our
faults, we can be proud of the millions of dollars Americans have donated to
relief organizations, the way two former presidents with no lost love between
them have banded together to promote Haitian relief, and home-grown efforts
like the collaboration between the St. Louis-based Hollyberry Baking Company
and the homeless clients served by St. Patrick Center, who are baking and
selling cookies for the benefit of earthquake victims. These tangible acts of
love, and the prayers that accompany them, are the most fitting response we can
give to that nagging question, "Why?"

Haitians themselves seem to know this. A few news reports out of Haiti have
featured survivors raging against God and leaving their faith in the dust of
their wrecked homes and lives. Far more have highlighted the steadfast faith
and resilience of the Haitian people — their impromptu Sunday praise gatherings
in the ruins, their gratitude to God for the sheer gift of survival, their
determination to band together to rescue loved ones still lost or buried
beneath the rubble.

The poorest nation in the Western hemisphere may look like a cursed land to
America's prosperity preachers, but believers in places like Haiti know what it
means to rely on God's providence in a way that most health-and-wealth gurus
never will. When they read in their tattered Bibles that "The Lord is close to
the broken-hearted and those who are crushed in spirit he saves," they need not
twist their minds in knots to comprehend the meaning of that psalm. They know
it in their bones, and they live it every day.

America is rushing to rescue Haiti from collapse. But Haiti is rescuing
America, too. For the moment, at least, Haiti's crisis has diverted our
collective attention from celebrity sex scandals and our own fiscal woes to the
big questions we forget to ask and the gratitude we forget to practice. The
needs of the Haitian people and our own capacity to address them have reminded
us once again that the mystery of suffering is best answered with self-giving
love, a love that can restore hope to those who give as well as those who
receive.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St.
Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.