Someone asked me recently, as we were watching the latest unsuccessful attempt to stem the flow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, how to make sense of this mess. I certainly don’t have any easy answers to that question, but here are some things I’ve been thinking about:

We’re all complicit and we need to change. God has given us some responsibility for caring for the earth (see Genesis 1 and Psalm 8, for starters), and for the most part we’ve done a lousy job of it. I know that for most of us, it isn’t realistic for us to give up our cars or ride our bikes to work. So we’ve got to advocate for new, cleaner, renewable energy sources, and we’ve got to make individual choices that help us walk a little more lightly on this earth.

The poor and the vulnerable are almost always hit hardest when disasters hit. We saw it in Katrina, in Haiti, and now again it is the folks who live along the gulf coast, the fishermen who make a hard living in those waters who will suffer the most. It’s worth remembering that in the gospels, over and over again, Jesus proclaims that the kingdom of God is first for the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, the hurting.

We worship a God of mercy and grace. While I believe that people (and corporations and governments) ought to be held accountable for their actions, I find the jokes about plugging the leak with BP executives offensive and mean. I feel for the BP employees who are dealing with this mess, for the guilt they must be feeling, and the pressure they must be under. They have been in my prayers as well as the families of those who died in the explosion and all those along the gulf whose lives are changing.

God works through our messes. This isn’t the first time we’ve screwed things up, nor will it be the last. The scriptures are full of stories of imperfect people who do their best to thwart God’s purposes. But somehow, God always finds away to work through it all, in spite of it all. God is there with the fishermen who have lost their jobs. God is there with the families of those who died. God is there with those who are working night and day to fix the problem.

God is there. God’s story continues.

Thanks be to God.