Why Do People Die In Fires?

Going to the heart of the work of the Fire Department, the question to put to God, why do people die in fires?  Police or military may ask why people die in violence, but this is the FD question.  I have a very unsatisfactory answer.  I do not really know.

I have an abstract, religious-type answer, it has to do with the fundamental evil of the universe and the sinfulness of humanity and the brokenness of creation, but that doesn’t seem like enough.  It also sounds like I am trying to defend a God who lets people die in fires.  From a certain point of view, I am.

Why am I asking this question now?  There hasn’t been, to my knowledge, a sudden death that requires expression.  It is the same reason you send a probie through the smoke box with all their equipment on, trying to squeeze through some narrow opening at the end.  Better to challenge something now, in the safety of practice, than when you run into the reality.

This started as a general question, but now consider the specific.  Why did that person, whom I could not get to, have to die in that fire?  I am pretending the role of a firefighter now.  It is one thing to consider the question is the broad sense, but how about the personal?  We have an ability, as a species, to put distance between ourselves and the tragic.  On the one hand, it lets us function, on the other hand, it lets us ignore.

There is a lot here, a lot more than one simple ‘meditation’ can answer.  But if we don’t ask the question in preparation, will we fall over the question when trying to find resolution?