They are a hopeless, worthless lot. They deserve to be left alone to shift for themselves, and the land itself there deserves cleansing “in the deep bosom of the ocean, buried.”

I wouldn’t go so far. The kids are surely blameless. Many of us had the great fortune to be born into workable cultures or acquired it subsequently by hard work or good luck. To have been born into a family with values or a culture with values is to win the lottery of life.

The only thing we can really pass on to our kids is the right way of thinking, the correct value of things. Money, goods — these last only a short time. It is the habits of heart and habits of mind that truly endure. This fleeting thing is our only treasure.

It’s interesting that a lot of people have remarked that this tragedy proves that “God does not exist”; but to what does that refer? The rocks and stones have always been part of the unfeeling stage; the boards beneath the feet. The real punchlines of the universe are delivered by those parts of that think. It is for us, not the rocks to act. By virtue of the fact that we cogito, ergo we are the posse, God’s agent upon the earth.

But to pin on the tin star, we have to accept the charge under which we act. Because to tell you the truth, unless we think there’s a good and bad, it’s really a matter of indifference between whether you join the fray as a medico or a bandido. Which road you choose at an intersection only matters if you’ve got someplace to go.

For the Haitians the questions are same ones all people face. Is it worthwhile going on when your wife and child lie dead under a heap of rubble and you stand there with only the bag of potato chips you were bringing home to them as a treat in your hand? Quo vadis, Pierre? Or do you pick yourself up and don your tin star and help your neighbor dig up his kids who are still alive and give him the potato chips to keep him going? Corpus Christi et Domine non sum dignus. Do your intentions count? Do you labor in the fields of the lord? You don’t believe that God exists? Well let me introduce you to the devil. That’s an easier sell.

Personally, I never expected to be alive. It was like finding myself in a show with a ticket I didn’t pay for. More than halfway through the drama now, and I still don’t know what the story is about. But I’m here with the ticket in my hand and I like to think it was put there for a reason.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And no, I don’t think it’s pointless.