“Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”*
Grenfell Tower still rises above North Kensington, its blackened remains wrapped up in plastic and a sign which reads, “Grenfell: Forever in our Hearts.” It’s been seven years today since a fire ripped through the homes of the families who lived in this vertical village, killing and destroying lives as it went. God was in those lives. God was not in the fire.
They were Mums. Dads. Sisters. Brothers. Daughters. Sons. Friends. Neighbours. They took care of one another, minded each other’s kids in the corridors, nipped to the shops, looked in on the elderly. They borrowed and shared, because when you’ve got nothing you can’t fall back on the delusion that you’re sufficient unto yourself. You are part of a community where nothing belongs to everyone, and so you help one another out. God was in the nothing. God was not in the fire.
The inquiry is still ongoing. The trauma to survivors, local residents and people involved in the rescue, is also an ongoing feature of daily lives. There are people living with long-term health conditions from having inhaled the burning remnants of a building that contained asbestos and numerous other toxins. In the immediate aftermath and the years following, people came together to help, provide support and solidarity, and to begin the long fight for justice. God was in the helpers. God was not in the fire.
When a major disaster happens, like Grenfell, like Hillsborough, like Aberfan, we are horrified and appalled at the scale of human suffering. But what follows is silence, years of silence where survivors are ignored, marginalised, shut-down and sometimes, blamed. God was not in the fire that destroyed Grenfell, God was not in the earth which moved to bury Aberfan, and God was not in the cause of the splitting and breaking crush of Hillsborough. God is to be found in the sheer silence which follows.
How can I believe in God when such bad things happen? Well, sometimes I don’t. When you witness - and personally experience – trauma and grave injustice it’s hard to hold on to the presence of God at all. But with my fingertips I hold on, because God is not in injustice. In greed. In lies. In profit over people. God is in the silence that nobody wants to hear, and God is in those who take the time to listen. God is not in the fire, but God is forever in my heart.
~ Unlike last week’s Friday Thought, this piece of writing isn’t associated with the Thought for the Day segment on the Today programme and wasn’t written or recorded for the BBC. All views contained here are entirely my own.
*1 Kings 19: 11-12.
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Best,
Nice to have a vocal thought delivered regularly , that I can listen to at leisure. Thanks taking the time to do this.
Thank you, Jayne. This echoes something I've been thinking about recently. 'God doesn't work like that' is one of the most liberating things I learned when (at last!) I found someone who would listen and take me seriously when I described the spiritual abuse I'd been experiencing. Deeply flawed and sinful human beings can do awful things to each other, but God is not in those awful things. It removed from me the cognitive dissonance of trying to understand how a good God could be at work in gaslighting, manipulation, condescension, and all the other things one experiences as a byproduct of being a woman with an independent will. God is not in those things. But God will bring something out of it to give us a hope and a future.