The Typhoon in the Philippines

The newspapers and television news report that the death toll in the Philippines from the strongest typhoon in recorded history could climb to 10,000 (or higher).  I am reminded of the cynical but sadly often true observation:  When one person close to you dies, it is a tragedy.  When 10,000 people die in a distant land, it is a statistic.  Even for us as Catholics who cherish the unique value and dignity of each individual, we can find it difficult to get our minds around loss of life at a large scale, and we struggle to feel an emotional connection with the victims of disasters occurring in exotic places.

When I spent a summer teaching in Rome in the Summer of 2007, I regularly watched “BBC World News” in the mornings and evenings, as it was one of two English-language stations available on our cable network (the other being, interestingly enough, “Al Jazeera Sports”).  That was the summer of the 1-35 bridge collapse in the Twin Cities, which of course was a story of particular interest to those of us from the University of St. Thomas.  But I remember being struck one morning when the BBC anchor announced, “Ten thousand people have died in Turkey as the heat wave continues.  But, first, we go to our person on the scene at the bridge collapse in Minnesota.”  (And, yes, the BBC indeed had a reporter — complete with BBC British accent — at the scene of the bridge collapse for live reports every half hour.)  Ten thousand dead in Turkey.  But the priority news story for the BBC was the bridge collapse in Minnesota at which thirteen lost their lives.

Now we can ridicule or disparage the BBC’s choice to highlight one story over the other, or we might attribute the choice to the race for ratings.  But I think there is another way to understand that seemingly odd contrast.  For those of us in the western developed world, we can more easily relate to the calamity of a collapsing highway bridge, plunging dozens of cars into the river — that is, we can imagine such a thing happening to us.  We have more difficulty imagining ever being in a situation without easy access to cooling and clean water where scorching temperatures would cost thousands of lives.

Because our empathy and sympathy grows out of relationships, we naturally will have more for those with whom we are in relationship — or at least those with whom we identify in common experience and thus can envision a form of relationship.  The Gospel of John reminds us that "God so loved the World," but it is so hard to love "the World" until we develop relationships within the Body of Christ.

The same is true for most of us in America when we see the images of destruction left by a typhoon on the other side of the globe.  We pause to be shocked and sincerely express pity, but we lack the imagination to be deeply moved (for any length of time) by what we see.  And I must confess that I have often been counted in that number — wanting to care and meaning to care, but lacking the connectedness to have the concern of relationship.  While I want to do the right thing and lift up others in prayer and contribute to disaster relief, it may be hard to think with the mind of Christ about persons so far removed from me and my situation.

For me, not anymore.  Or at least not today.  My brother, Dan, was in a small city on the Filipino island of Biliran, which was directly in the path of Typhoon Haiyan.  You’ve all seen the horrifying images of death and devastation coming out of Tacloban on the island of Leyte.  The provincial capital of Naval on Biliran, where my brother was staying with his expecting fiancé, is just 50 miles to the west of Tacloban.  We know Dan and Dayline were in Naval when the storm struck.  We have not heard anything more from him in the few days since, nor has the State Department or the American embassy in Manila been able to offer us any word of his situation.

We prayerfully assume that they are both well and simply unable to get word out with electricity and communications down and likely to remain down for days or weeks more.  We pray that they are able to persevere and find food and water as they wait for rescue and restoration.  And in praying for my brother, whom I know, I can better envision the lives and plight of those around him in the wake of the typhoon.

Catholic Relief Services is working with its partners to provide shelter and water to the tens of thousands in need in the Philippines.  Please consider giving today: http://emergencies.crs.org/typhoon-haiyan-help-philippines-survive-and-recover/