People Quick To Ask, "Where Was God?" In Aftermath of Building Collapse in Florida

 One of the rabbi's who spoke on TV, following the catastrophic collapse of the residential condo building in Florida, said people were asking him, "Why did God allow this to happen?" Of course he was quite upset as many congregants and even lifelong friends were in that building. Faith ministers and chaplains from all faiths are helping relatives and friends of those who were in the ill-fated building, to cope with the unimaginable. 

But God can't be blamed for everything. Yes, we live in a fallen world and yes there is evil in this world but God gets blamed for so much. I often find myself defending God.

As it turns out, according to a news article, God isn't to blame. People are to blame. People who didn't take warnings from engineers seriously. Engineers according to a New York Times article, which came out this morning wrote in 2018 that the building had serious structural problems with corrosion, crumbling concrete and cracking which needed to be addressed in a "timely manner." So why weren't the recommendations acted upon immediately or people warned so they could have acted accordingly?

All human error, misunderstanding, lack of knowledge of the severity of the problem? As one engineer being interviewed said, "It was like a perfect storm." There is probably more than one reason the building came crashing down in a pancake fashion, which made it more difficult to survive the collapse. 

And so friends and family of the missing, wait and pray. Very heart-breaking, no one should have to go through such pain and agony. And to think it could have been avoided........that's even worse. 

NJA

All Those Aliens Will Have To Be Baptized!

 Stories of UFO's or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP's) like the government prefers to call them are everywhere in the news these days.  It became mainstream news (and out of the fringes) when navy pilots began talking, years ago, about encounters with UFO's that can defy gravity and move through space, our atmosphere and water at speeds that would kill humans.....Some of these UFO's can be explained but some cannot. And now the government shortly will release a report which will basically say, some phenomena is not explainable. They just don't know what they are. But some navy pilots report that they are flying close to navy jets, in restricted U.S. airspace. So even some congressmen are saying, we should know what they are. That makes sense. 

I've listened to these navy pilots talk (on 60 Minutes) about chasing UFO's at high speeds and they've also shown up on radar and on cockpit cameras.  So what are we as Christian believers suppose to think about all this? It fascinates me. 

Many Vatican astronomers and scientists will say, the probability is we are likely not alone in the Universe. Statistically it's beginning to look like there might be many other planets orbiting stars that have some life form on them. We will have to see what the interstellar satellites find, they're going into deeper and deeper space.  

If we are not alone, though our planet is probably the most beautiful of God's creation, (there is so much symmetry, order, diversity and beauty on our planet, solar system and in our Milky Way Galaxy) that God took a special interest in us. We are greatly favored! Yes, I do believe that. 

But if there are other intelligent life forms out there and if they are smart and more advanced and have figured out how to travel though space without conventional propulsion then if they ever stop darting around the skies and land (now that would be the biggest news story ever) and say, "Hi, we'd like to introduce ourselves." Well then what? Of course that could open up dialogue and the opportunity for evangelization and the offering of baptism, looking at it from a Christian perspective.

So who knows, maybe in our lifetimes or perhaps in the next generation we will find extraterrestrial life, or they'll find us and just maybe we'll find they too worship and believe in God and maybe they will need some catechizing.

Fun to think about all this..

NJA