Pray for the nation of Turkey.  Outside of understanding the nature of the geological processes that ripple constantly through the netherworlds of the planet (and we know quite a bit about such things) and how some regions of the world are, unfortunately, prone to seismic activity, I have no answer to the horror of the earthquake that devastated the nation earlier this week.

    Yes, this is a good world, and yes, this is a purposeful world.  And yes, this is a world grounded in a transcendent wisdom.  But this is a difficult wisdom.  It fractures as much as it heals, breaks as much as it repairs and renews.  It's there, but like everything on this earth, it is caught between the unassailable integrity of its origins and the shifting and mercurial impact of its present moments.  And incredibly heartbreaking things happen.

    And God seems gone.  Pray for relief, pray for solace, pray for strength.  Pray for international aid for this beleaguered part of the world.  Believe in the ultimacy of a wisdom that not only bends under the weight of the challenges of finitude, but which also creates beginnings beyond it.