The poor Rohingya of Bangladesh.  Persecuted and driven out of supposedly peaceful Buddhist Myanmar, these Muslim people have been hit again.  Yesterday, a fierce cyclone swept through their fragile encampments on the shores of their adopted country and decimated them.  Many lost their lives; many more lost their homes and everything they had (which was not much).  It's a tragedy of unbearable proportion.
     In the face of such suffering and pain, we wonder about many things.  The first that comes to my mind is why the predominantly Buddhist population of Myanmar broke with everything Buddhist founder Guatama told them about living harmoniously with all things and brutally pushed the Rohingya out of the country.  The second is, of course, God. What is he doing?  What is God doing in the face of such disaster?
     I cannot answer this fully.  No one can.  Yet I ponder the contrast between a monotheistic Abrahamic religion and an a-theistic one like Buddhism.  If there is no God, we will be confused about our circumstances, yes, but we will have no way to understand them other than the circumstances themselves.  If there is a God, which I fervently believe to be true, we may still be confused, but we know that when all is said and done, purpose remains.  There is explanation, there is light.  Why?  Because God himself suffered this pain.  He knows it, he feels it.  And he can redeem it.