USAir Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in mid-January, had both engines disabled by a flock of geese, and was expertly guided to a safe landing in the frigid Hudson River. Everyone - 155 people on board and all those on boats in the river - survived and Captain "Sully" Sullenberger instantly became an American hero. An unforgettable photo of the floating aircraft showed the passengers standing on the wing awaiting rescue. It was an amazing event that was dubbed "The Miracle on the Hudson."
Seven months later, Captain Jeremy Clark had a mid-air accident that didn't end as well. Clark was piloting a commercial helicopter carrying five Italian tourists when a private plane collided with it, dismembering both and crashing them into the Hudson. Eight people were killed as bystanders on shore witnessed it. No survivors, no heroes, no miracles.
Or were there?
Jonathan Morris is the parochial vicar at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in Manhattan and was asked to minister to victim's families by the inter-faith Disaster Chaplaincy Services. Fr. Morris wrote of his experience in the Wall Street Journal.
He spent time with Jeremy Clark's fiancee, his immediate family and other relatives, and was struck by the way they handled the sudden loss of one they loved dearly. Their response was suffused with love for their lost husband-to-be, son and brother; thankfulness for the recovery teams that braved strong currents to complete their mission; and sympathy for the loved ones of the pilot and victims in the airplane, regardless of fault.
The family explained that "Jeremy would have wanted it like this." You see, he had drifted from faith but recently returned to God, writing a letter to Him that his fiancee shared. In part it read, "None of this could have happened without your intervention. The improbable has become a reality. Thank you for all that I have in my life. I am blessed."
Fr. Morris has seen agitated responses to untimely death. As he put it, it's "as if in every crevice of the heart where we don't cultivate love....anger, fear, recrimination and self-pity seep in and take hold." He feels the difference is humility: the knowledge that we're not the center of the universe but that we exist among other realities, starting with a God who "knows us, loves us and wants the best for us."
Self-centered people are overwhelmed by personal tragedy because it's all about them. And when they suffer loss, it has more gravity for two main reasons. First, they believe the deceased is gone forever. Second, their personal universe is limited because it doesn't include God. A tragedy is more devastating because it plays a bigger part in a smaller world.
When things like this happen it's hard to know the reason. But Christians believe that God allows these things to happen (not makes them happen) in an imperfect world and that His "response to our pain....will bring forth a greater good out of every instance of evil and suffering."
God has a long-term plan and how we fit into it is often unclear. But sometimes it's possible to glimpse into it, even in an apparently senseless event like this. The peace, forgiveness and absence of recrimination exhibited by Jeremy's family may be the one striking lesson from it. The strength that enabled the Morrises to act so gracefully was God's response to their pain.
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