Maktoob.
It’s an Arabic word that means “It is written.”
Have you ever found yourself wondering why certain things happen? For instance, why bad things happen to good people. Or why good things happen to bad people?
I ask you to ponder the questions above because I’ve found that many people seem to generally pose these questions during significantly trying and difficult times such as when an individual has a terminal illness or the occurrence of a natural disaster and violent deaths.
As news of the Moore, Okla., tornado unfolded, the varied conversations began. I read a blog post that said in part, “See world, there is no God. If the Sandy Hook killings did not prove it to you, maybe this tornado will. What God would take the lives of innocent children? What God would cause such disruption on a place like Moore – especially at a school where kids died? Stop your ridiculous ideologies of a ‘God’ and know that s*#t happens. Besides, I don’t understand why you would want to believe in a ‘God’ that causes so much pain.”
I read a Facebook post that had a drastically different perspective.
“Understand that the end is nearer than ever before,” the post read in reference to the Oklahoma tornado, that at Recorder press time claimed the lives of 14 adults and 10 children, including two infants. “This is nothing new. Those tornadoes could’ve easily hit the way they did in Indiana as often as we get them. The children of God need to seriously wake up.”
Those two different perspectives piqued my interest in how people think. Their comments made me wonder what other people felt about tragedies and how they linked them to God.
That’s when I stumbled upon Joshua Prager’s story.
At the age of 19, Prager, an American Jew was in Israel with a friend. They were riding on a minibus with 21 other people when suddenly the bus and an oncoming truck collided. Prager would survive the crash, but with complications: he was a hemiplegic.
Twenty-two years after the crash, Prager, a journalist, traveled back to Jerusalem in search of his crash-mates. He wondered what their lives had become and whether the accident changed their perspectives on life in general.
During his trip, he first encountered a large extended family that had 18 members on the bus that fateful day. The family patriarch told Prager that God caused the crash and spared their lives. Prager then encountered the widow of the lone death during the accident – the bus driver. The widow said God ordained the crash. “It is written,” she said. “If you don’t believe that, you will go crazy.”
The last person Prager encountered was the driver of the truck that collided with the bus. The driver said he became religious after the crash. He then stopped speaking to the journalist in Hebrew to say “Maktoob,” the Arabic word that means, “It is written.”
While all of the people involved in the crash felt the event was an act of God, yet they still loved and honored God; Prager himself did not. He initially believed in God, but after the accident he realized that part of him was long gone. He writes that he “came to see that I did not believe in a deity that choreographs crashes. I soon saw just as clearly the uncomfortable fact that I was agnostic regarding God.”
It is interesting to me how differently people perceive things. And while Prager and his crash-mates’ philosophies were so different, each crash victim was deeply committed to their respective ideologies and perspectives.
I’m sure people perceive the various tragedies that have occurred in this country – be it natural disasters or heinous shooting rampages, similar to the crash victims. It’s about your specific interpretation. This reminds me of the different denominations and how people interpret the same Scriptures very differently.
What I believe is that everything that happens, happens for a reason – during times of triumph and tragedy. Though we may not specifically understand the reasoning behind tragedies or other unfortunate circumstances; there is at least a message to be examined. That message to me is that every disaster and every tragic crime should make us all understand the importance of God’s grace and mercy and why they are needed in our lives. Death is a part of life. And our time on Earth is short relative to the time we will spend in heaven or hell. What we choose to do with that time and what we choose to believe within that time is completely up to us.
You can email comments to Shannon William at shannonw@indyrecorder.com.
