Explaining the Unexplainable

When tragedies occur, people need a way of explaining them in order to move past them. We build stories to explain and make sense of things we can't possibly understand, and often those stories are related to religion. Religion provides a narrative lens to view historical events through and decipher them, and this is exemplified in Lamentations in the way religion is used to explain the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

Lamentations describes the horrific destruction of Jerusalem as God's punishment for leading sinful lives. After acknowledging the faults of the people, the narrative proceeds to ask God for forgiveness and pleads, "that we may be restored; renew our days as of old"(5.13 22-23). They create hope by taking decisions out of their hands and placing them in God's. In this case, giving up control is a way to move on past the tragedy. Even though life is horrible now, there is significant hope that it will improve, because God is forgiving and basically Good.

As we discussed in class, there is a significant parallel between the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC and the 9/11 crisis in 2001 AD. People responded in similar ways to make sense of the tragedy, with both religious and secular narratives. The process of unloading emotional trauma in a creative way is a universal human trait. In any tragedy, the same sort of emotional responses occur as in Lamentations. Religion has a way of bringing people together, and post-tragedy, the last thing one wants to feel is alone. The sacking of Jerusalem and the emotional response of "the city" parallel many tragic situations and the typical human response to them; narratives are created to explain the unexplainable catastrophes in life and provide hope for the future.