(While
doing grief counseling in New Orleans after Katrina) I was reminded of the
Christian ethicist Stanley Hauwerwas, who observed that when people are
hurting, what they need is not an explanation, but a community capable of
helping them to absorb their suffering, helping them to simply cope. And I
thought of Herbert Anderson, a wise pastoral theologian, who said that the
question in the face of suffering is not, what can we say? but what can we bear
to hear? -Gordon Peerman
