March 18, 2014 (Tuesday )
I started to school at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School (Houston, Texas) in September, 1937. Six months earlier, on March 18, the school at New London, Texas, was the scene of a horrible tragedy as more than 400 people, most of them children, were killed by a gas explosion.
Twelve years later, when I was temporarily a student at East Texas Baptist College in Marshall, Texas, several of my classmates and I visited the family of one of my friends from New London, 49 miles from Marshall. There were no signs of the disaster, but it was still on everyone’s mind, although not necessarily a topic of conversation. My friend’s name was Robert Jordan. We made that visit 65 years ago.
The school building was only five years old, and cost nearly 16 million dollars (in today’s dollars). The school was using free natural gas from the oil field, and that gas was colorless and odorless. A leak, therefore, went undetected. Afterwards, the Texas Legislature passed legislation that requires natural gas to be treated so that it has an unpleasant odor, and that practice was soon adopted worldwide.
Walter Cronkite was 20 years old when he reported on the disaster on location, an experience that haunted him for the rest of his life. It was Texas’ third worst disaster, after the Galveston flood and the Texas City explosion.
Jesus noted several of the tragedies of his day, and emphasized the truth that these were accidents and not judgments. Life is what it is, and we need spiritual strength to withstand our trials. That strength is built upon faith. Where is our faith today?