Acts of God?

Today a ST journalist described in disgust certain remarks passed by some people in various parts of the world on the Japanese calamities, some of which tentamount to downright meaness and cruelty. These include cartoonists and comedians poking fun, religious leaders who remarked that the Japanese people deserved the sufferings because they embrace idols and materialism to remarks about it being karma or pay-back from the ravages the Japanese inflicted during the second world war as well as religious extremists claiming that the disasters were acts of God to punish non-believers.

Fortunately on the flip side there were much much more emails, blogs etc calling for prayers for the people of Japan. A friend of mine sent an email with a link that encourages readers to use the power of the mind as a group to help the victims by visualing the cooling of the nucleur reactors.

After I had finished my Chinese Calligraphy homework last weekend, I suddenlty felt like writing a few phrases to express what my heart wished for the afflicted Japanese. As I am almost Chinese illiterate, I surfed the net and found a site which had a whole list of Chinese phrases for blessings. At first sight what seem most relevant are phrases like "Shang Di Bao You" (May god bless/protect you) or "Shen Ci Ni Li Liang" (God bestow you the strength). However after further thoughts such phrases do seem ironical. How on earth can one ask God to protect or bless these people when God could have prevented the tragic events in the first place. If one fails to comprehend the meaning of such wrath, one can also understand why some people really believe that God is sending a message of warning. On the other hand one of my classmates in the Chinese Calligraphy class described the calm and stoicism of the Japanese as an attribute derived from the deeply rooted seed of Zen Buddhism in the country, ie. the seed has blossomed and blessed the people with such strength.

The ST Journalist whom himself experienced a personal tragedy a few years ago concluded "That in the end, most of us who have suffered loss want to be defined not by our trials, but by how we overcome them...The people of Japan, by their quiet courage, have shown themselves to be on truly firm ground."

How then should I pray for them? I wrote "Ke Fu Ni Jing" (Overcome adversity), "Jian Ru Jia Jing" (Moving on to good times) and "Yong Wang Zhi Qian" (Move forward courageouly).