No Such Luck

Why doesn’t the all-powerful Lord of love intervene when life causes heartache and suffering?

It was a beautiful, sunny, summer day in Baltimore, Md. People in a neighborhood of neatly kept brick rowhouses were going about their usual business. A few minutes before 10 a.m. — BOOM! — a massive explosion rocked the entire neighborhood. A great plume of white smoke shot into the sky, and a hail of debris — bricks, scraps of wood, roof shingles — came raining down on the manicured front lawns. Articles of clothing were left hanging from tree limbs.

A security camera across the street captured the scene on August 10, 2020: three houses simply exploded. In the blink of an eye, nothing remained of them but a massive pile of rubble.

It appeared to have been a natural gas explosion, although Baltimore Gas and Electric said at the time its equipment was in good working order and there had been no reports of gas leaks. An investigation ensued, with five months of questions and uncertainty. Finally, on January 11, 2021, the company called a press conference and...