True acts of God require a helping hand from humans

Were Rita and Katrina - Mother Nature's "Girls Gone Wild" - acts of God? If so, what was the point? Some insurance companies and even FEMA are balking at paying for flood damage that has occurred as a result of the hurricanes. Though some insurance policies qualify hurricanes as "acts of God," the resultant flooding, apparently, does not. What, exactly, is an act of God? Some people argue that hurricanes and other weather-related disasters are not acts of God, but simply the nature of nature, which can be cruel, unforgiving and arbitrary. Don't believe it? Watch an animal show. The ethereal grace possessed by a gazelle doesn't preclude a lion from eating it. Concerning the Gulf Coast, some are speculating that divine forces may be at play. They point out that the region's history of voodoo, loose living and the riverboat casinos dotting the coast of Biloxi might have caused God to look the other way for a moment while Satan wreaked havoc on humankind. But if Satan really wanted to unravel God's handiwork, wouldn't keeping the casinos, brothels, and bars intact be a better, long-term investment? The number of miracles that occurred during Katrina and Rita far outnumber the tragedies, and the outpouring of compassion continues to outstrip the acts of greed, selfishness and violence. Who truly believes that allowing an elderly person to die of exposure in her wheelchair in the Superdome is the act of a compassionate supreme being? Isn't that more in keeping with a very human foul-up? Perhaps the only acts of God about which we should be concerned, are those over which we actually have some control. Loving your neighbor as yourself is an act of God. Declaring that your neighbor got what they deserved for living in a certain region, is not. Helping to lift the poor out of poverty is an act of God. Despising them for being poor, is not. Doing good when it is within your power to do so, is an act of God. Doing otherwise, is not. Seeking real solution to the fiasco that took place in the Gulf, is an act of God. Finger-pointing, political spin and counterspin, are not. Praying for President George W. Bush and other government officials - yes, even former FEMA chief Michael Brown and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin - is an act of God. Taking secret pleasure in their failures, particularly when it comes at the cost of other peoples' lives, is not. Providing food and shelter for victims of disasters is an act of God. Basing the measure of your largesse on the race or social status of those victims, is not. Acts of God cannot be achieved apart from the grace of God. Good intentions not rooted in grace will give way to frustrated bitterness, because needy people are not always lovable or necessarily deserving of kindness, mercy, or compassion. Some of them, frankly, could make a bishop kick out a stained glass window. Whether Katrina, Rita and other such disasters are acts of God probably will be debated as long as there are people of belief. The only acts of God of which we can be truly certain, are the ones that we perform. Charita M. Goshay is a writer at The Repository in Canton, Ohio. By Charita M. Goshay copley news service www.mercedsearch.com Searching merced one click at a time