"Radical discontinuity" is not a phrase that you drop very often over the morning coffee. The phrase has some technical meanings in archaeology, biology, and theology, but essentially it means a sudden shocking departure from the world we expect and the one we find.

Hurricane Katrina is a radical discontinuity for us all. Typically, a major storm is locally upsetting, but there is a presumption that with time and help, things will be made right and whole again. But what do you say when things are more than broken - in the words of one observer, when "whole buildings just aren't there anymore!"? What do you say when all the taken-for-granted "infrastructure" simply no longer exists? How can you imagine a return to things as they once were after the Gulf Coast has drowned?

In Katrina, we encounter a radical tear in how our own picture of how we think the world can and should run. Because of the storm, there will be for many thousands no continuity between last week and the weeks yet to come. The suffering is beyond our usual use of the word "devastation." People invoke the image of a war-zone to capture the immensity of this disaster. The suffering is radical. The discontinuity is likewise.

Radical discontinuities occur all the time, less broadly but with similar personal devastation: Consider the sudden diagnosis of a life-threatening cancer. What do you say? Or consider your boss informing you your services are no longer required or the shock of an accident that kills a friend or family member. Words fail. Daily, we confront a radical discontinuity as chronic poverty looms up in stark relief against the claims of the American dream. Such shocks lead us to shout, "No, it can't be!" Afterward comes the question: "Why me? What is the sense of this suffering?"

Job of the Hebrew scriptures is the archetype here. He experienced a radical discontinuity when everything he thought should be the fruit of a faithful life was taken away. In our own way, each of us is similarly tested as our lives are turned topsy turvy or we confront the suffering of others. It is not fair; we don't deserve it. From the hospital bed, the unemployment line, the funeral parlor, or the Red Cross volunteer tent: Yes, why me? Why now? Where is God in all this?

"Have faith," many will say. And so we should. Sometimes, however, faith may be often confused with particular beliefs. In a larger view, we need to think of faith as a matter of trust and confidence. It is what gives us hope when hope seems foolish. A friend says it this way: "Faith is being more optimistic than the facts warrant." Certainly those awaiting rescue on rooftops or broiling in the sun on a New Orleans' expressway waiting for someone to take them somewhere will need a lot of faith - in addition to help from others. Yes. Let's think of faith as the ability to see beyond the horizon of our present limitations and to trust and have confidence that a better day awaits.

Those whose lives are immediately in the midst of Katrina's radical discontinuity as well we who comprise that national soul will be sorely tested to keep the faith. Out of the ashes, a phoenix will rise; after death, there is resurrection. But these are over the horizon notions.