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Twenty seven dead.  Twenty of them children.  There are no words.  And publishing thoughts still in process is a risky thing, but it seems important to try.
 
Children.  Not a teen angry at classmates – although that is equally tragic.  Not an employee angry at perceived wrongs by a boss or company – also tragic.  But children – most of them 6 or 7 years old.  There are no words.
 
How do you attend 27 funerals?  What about the one grade level that will always be smaller and gradually work its way up the ladder over the next 12 years?  How do parents and teachers guide young children through this, deal with questions and sleepless nights and fears that no child should have to experience? 
 
When will this end, this seeming escalation of violence?
 
During Advent and Christmas I’m always spiritually watchful for some new insight into, or connection with, the story that is so familiar.  Jesus born in a manger.  Shepherds.  Wisemen.  We’ve heard it so many times.  The incarnation is an incredibly wonderful miracle and I never lose my wonder at that event.  But the story, the biblical narrative, seems so familiar.
 
In an unexpected way, the events on Friday jolted me into a part of the story I’ve never spent much time in before.  “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.”  (Matthew 2:16)
 
We don’t talk much about this.  I don’t know how many died.  But I do know there were tears and grieving, that there were mothers and fathers who would understand the anguish of the Newtown parents.  That there was a town in shock.
 
Madeleine L’Engle, in An Irrational Season, wonders whether Jesus’ tenderness toward children was partially a response to knowing that Herod’s actions in the massacre were connected to the news of Jesus’ birth.  That in one sense, He was responsible for their deaths.
 
Who can fathom losing all the boys in a town under 2 years old?  Or losing 20 young children in a school in Connecticut? 
 
Into this world – the one 2000 years ago and the one today – comes Jesus, the hope of the world, the light that overcomes darkness, the one who cares for the brokenhearted.
 
We know the end of the story.  Light wins.  Darkness loses.  But in the meantime – in this in between time – there are so many occasions for tears, for grieving.  So many tragedies.  So much that is “not okay”.  School shootings.  Abused and exploited women and children.  Poverty.  So many issues and policies that need wisdom in the midst of thoughtful and intelligent discussions.  What do we do about guns, mental illness, school security?  These are important discussions. 
 
But right now it’s also okay to grieve.  To admit that we can’t understand “why”.  There are tears that are appropriate to shed.  It’s okay to wonder “How do you cling to a glimmer of hope and light in the face of such darkness?”
 
For me, it’s also become important to say “God is still God”.  I don’t want to get caught up in wondering why God allows – or doesn’t prevent – evil.  Or to discuss free will and the fall.
 
I just need to affirm that God is still God.  The baby born 2000 years ago is still the hope of the world, the light shining in the darkness, the one who can be clung to and who binds up wounds and cares for the brokenhearted.
 
God is still God.  God is still God.  God is still God.
 

11 responses to “Darkness … and light”

  1. “God is still God.” It begs the question of the nature of God, don’t you think?

    These stories prove that God can be all-powerful OR all-loving, but God cannot be both.

    If I had the power to stop events like these — me with my fallible, selfish, imperfect form of human loving — I would. I could not stand by and watch six-year-old children slaughtered. God did. God does. Am I a better being than God? If God is all-powerful, then, yes, I am.

    God is either a moral actor capable of moving against evil or God is not. To be powerful and stand by and watch is not Love.

    In times of trouble, Mr. Rogers (of Public Television fame) would take children in his arms and say, “Look for the helpers.” Look to those who are always around after a disaster — powerless to stop it, but loving, caring and healing. This could, perhaps, be the true nature of God.

  2. I love this reflection Betty. Heartbreaking. Your steadiness is so encouraging though. Appreciate this.

  3. Sue –

    It does beg the question of the nature of God. And I will be the first to admit that I cannot find an analogy that “works” well to explain why God “stands by and watches” if He has the power to stop it. It’s not the picture of a parent who allows their child to experience some pain (e.g., physically falling a small distance) in order to learn a skill (e.g., walking or riding a bike). I know that picture doesn’t explain this. I don’t have a well honed theological argument either. The often used answer about a fallen world and free will doesn’t satisfy my emotional desire to understand why. I believe they are somehow part of the answer, that there is a love AND a power embedded in free will that I can’t quite grasp.

    My decision to believe God is both all loving and all powerful is a choice, a leap of faith. Leaps of faith are never entirely “reasonable” – or else they wouldn’t be leaps of faith. But I believe it is a reliable one – given the God I do know, given the God I have seen bring healing and freedom and light into dark places. Given the presence I feel and the lives I’ve seen changed. Why some and not others? I don’t know. Why “miraculously” prevent some tragedies and not others? I don’t know.

    That’s as honest as I can be. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It doesn’t make sense. And yet I trust Him in a way that doesn’t feel like the blind faith of someone who is afraid to think anything else.

    I try not to live in cliches. I’ll wrestle with things I wish I knew or understood, I’ll fail to see how it all fits together, I’ll agree that in “my” world I’d stop things like the shooting. I’ll consider what it says about the nature of God. None of that “talking back” to God scares me. It’s part of a deep and real relationship that, in the end, sustains me.

    But it is a choice to land there – and I know that.

    This is one of the things I appreciate about you and miss now that we don’t see each other for years at a time. You force me to think and then to articulate what I believe. Makes me yearn for a visit to Panama.

  4. I have been thinking some of those same things. Missing a whole class of children, as they proceed through each year. Do they have smaller classes? Or do you have to cut a teacher every year? Silly logistically, but horrible in the reality that there is such a huge hole in that school and town and those families, and it will glaringly obvious for another 12 years. They say that the pain of a loss is just as great on the one year anniversary of a death, but this town will experience it every Christmas as well as when they work out the school classes, when school starts, with every assembly with this year group required a smaller area on the gym floor. The pain is unfathomable. How do you live with it?

    Also that Harod killed children, babes. You are right, we do skip over that part of the story. And that killing would not be a surprise that would be over in a few minutes, but rather a process where you live the horror in slow motion. Of course the obvious reaction is to hate the one babe Harod was looking for, as well as Harod himself. Do we even know the size of the town? Were 100 children killed? thousands? The pain is unfathomable.

    The thing I constantly come back to it this:

    The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
    2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
    to comfort all who mourn,
    3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
    to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
    the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
    and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
    They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

    When I think of binding up the broken hearted, I can’t help but think of binding up wounds . . . and the blood that was spilled on the classroom floor. Any yet Jesus binds it up.

    Freedom for the captives — how easy it would be to allow our selves to be captive to the fear and the horror. But Jesus can free our hearts from that.

    Release from darkness the prisoners — Were it not for our loving God and Savior, I cannot imagine anything other than that town and those people falling into great darkness. Where is their hope without the one who loves them and cares for them in the midst of all this?

    And somehow we have the year of the Lord’s favor. This is so difficult. I think it refers to the Year of Jubilee, when debts are wiped away. But this year has been particularly hard for so many people that I know or know of personally . . . cancer, deaths, illness, troubles marriages, sin, so much difficulty . . . how can it be that God is showing us favor event his year? I have to go back to this, “Faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love.” We use this to set Love as higher and above faith and hope. But I’ve recently been seeing that faith and hope are very close seconds, not distant seconds. Love wraps around us, but faith and hope help us to hang on, and in the midst of everything, that is the Lord’s favor — faith, hope and love.

    God’s day of vengenance — People question how a good God can allow this. I see God’s utter anger at the perpetrators of evil. I cannot be thankful enough that I won’t experience the horrific judgment coming from God — eternity without Him. I cannot fathom the horror of God’s complete condemnation for unforgiven (assuming) sins such as these. I really don’t think I’m going to see Harod or the shooter in heaven (understatment).

    So as I (we) mourn and grieve — the things that we can long for are the crown of beauty, the oil of gladdness/joy, and the garment of praise. I really don’t feel it now, but faith is the certainty of what is unseen and I wait for that crown of beauty, the gladness, and that garment of praise, because I believe in the God who said so. I have no idea how God can turn such horrific events into good things, but I’ve seen him be faithful in the small things and believe that is his character.

    Forgive me for being so long winded and preachy — but this was my time of processing. I appreciate your words, Betty. Thank you.

  5. An acquaintance would probably look at your choice, Betty, and let it go at that. Each to his or her own.

    But an old, old, OLD friend would gently challenge you on it, suggesting that a “deep and real relationship” with God will eventually require resolution of this vitally important question. Beyond mere trust.

    Were I to have been in that classroom with the power to stop Adam P. Lanza and decided (for whatever reason) not to use my power, God and all the human world would judge me harshly, probably consigning me to everlasting hell. But the God you describe seems to live beyond this moral universe — or you placed Him there, believing He has a higher calling than Love As We Know It.

    I ask you: what kind of Love could possibly stand by and not act, if it had the power to do so? Could we humans ever worship such a Love?

    The God I worship is very, very small. A mere drop of water on a rock — and then, long years later, another drop. Basically powerless, but inexorable. Over eons, change… This is not nearly as wonderful as the close and intimate relationship you appear to have — but it authentically represents my experience (as opposed to my longings) and truthfully answers the hard questions raised by these and other atrocities.

    It occurs to me that we both walk away from this with not-completely-satisfying answers…

  6. Sue – Part of me wants to dive right in and respond, but I don’t know how to fully articulate it yet. In the midst of all this, I do find myself yearning to be back in closer touch with you. Yes – we’ve landed at drastically different places on some pretty major things. But old, old, OLD friendships are rare and are worth fighting for. You challenge me in good ways.

    I know this may sound like a cop-out, but I think I live more comfortably with mystery than most people. The yes/and, the belief that things are not as mutually exclusive as most people propose they are, the belief that my ability to understand is not the measure of truth. The desire to understand and to make things fit is not confined to one ideology or belief system. You find it in some Christians. You find it in some atheists. And everyone in between or rippling out from those positions. They make things “work” and “fit together” differently but they are still looking for answers. I’m not completely free from that desire or tendency, but I am also comfortable with saying “I don’t know”.

    I don’t know how to describe it well. My comfort with mystery is not laziness – although it could be seen as that. It’s not sticking my head in the sand – I’m exposed daily to the horrors and atrocities around the world. I do believe that God grieves over these atrocities – but I also know that doesn’t satisfy the “why” or answer the questions you raise. And the questions you raise are the hardest ones for me.

    I won’t be able to let this go. I know it is going to be percolating around my brain all night and beyond. It’s an appropriate question for you to challenge me with – and I give you my word that I will not ignore it. I’ll wrestle with it – hopefully well – and will keep bringing my thoughts to you. Not to try and make you see it my way – but to try and articulate where I am and why I landed here.

  7. I knew a UU minister who believed that God’s other name was Truth. This guy was absolutely committed to knowing the Truth, whatever it was. A man of great integrity, he was famous for asking the question, “If God were to reveal God’s self to you in a way that was totally convincing and at the same time against everything you knew about God, would you go forward believing the new information or would you continue to believe what you believe now?”

    It’s a really, really tough question.

    Jonathan Haidt says that “we know what we know,” that Reason is a very small rider on top of a giant elephant. Reason’s main job is not to steer the elephant so much as justify the direction the elephant is going.

    We know what we know.

    I honor you, Betty, for engaging the mystery. Easier not to.

    S.

  8. I am not privy to the relationship between Betty and Sue, so please forgive me if I overstep any bounds. But some of Sue’s question jumped out at me:

    “If God were to reveal God’s self to you in a way that was totally convincing and at the same time against everything you knew about God, would you go forward believing the new information or would you continue to believe what you believe now?”

    To me it’s not a tough question. I believe in God (and Jesus) because of evidence, not revelation. I believe that there is evidence that Jesus rose from the dead; therefore, the rest follows. If someone could convince me that Jesus didn’t raise from the dead, I would be confronted with becoming Jewish or athiest — but certainly not continueing to follow Jesus as a great prophet simply because I “knew” him to be God or God-like.

    I fundamentally disagree with “we know what we know.” Fears, excitement, anxiety, love, etc effect how I see things. I have no doubt that my mind can bring me to some ridiculous conclusions if I ignore evidence. People can believe pretty messed up stuff just because they “know” — think of the obvious cults. Perhaps someone sees a revelation in their neighbor’s cat, that the cat is in fact God, and decides to worship the cat, because they know what they know. It’s utterly ridiculous and most people would call them delusional. But aren’t we all at least a tiny bit delusional?

    Finally, you state, “I ask you: what kind of Love could possibly stand by and not act, if it had the power to do so? Could we humans ever worship such a Love?” If we had a God that intervened in the great atrocities, then where is the line drawn between the great and the small, and the everyday? If God intervenes to prevent the great pain, then why not the little pains, and then do we not become puppets on strings? God making us all good? Then the answer would be that either we would all love God (by force of his will) or none of us would, because we would have no freedom to do so. God’s love for us allows freedom, dispite the pain that our choices cause. He is the healer of pain, not the preventer of it.

    I hope I haven’t overstepped my place.

  9. Sharie – Sue is a high school friend. When I was a junior in high school my dad’s job caused us to move from the east coast, where I had always lived, to Iowa. The middle of junior year of high school is a tough time to move and Sue’s friendship was a lifesaver. Great memories of everything from just hanging out together to pounding out Sound of Music duets on the piano. My dad was only in Iowa temporarily to help establish and then relocate a new division of a company, so we moved away a year and a half later, just after graduation. But Sue and I remained friends. Her career took her to Panama (as a court recorder). We were in each other’s weddings. I’ve been to Panama several times to visit her.

    We’ve ended up in different places spiritually but I have always appreciated the way she challenges me, and how she forces me to think about and articulate my beliefs. Conversation and discussion with her is always substantial and meaningful.

    I’m glad you joined the discussion.

  10. Betty, I need you & your thoughts & this. And here you are. Like Tal, your steadfastness and wisdom is comforting.

    Miss you!

  11. Betty

    Thanks for articulating what so many of us wrestle with. These families have been on my heart and in my prayers since we used to live so near. I cannot imagine the pain and grief, and yet I continue to trust that God is good. Man is evil or chooses evil. We may never know why. We must simply ask, what would You have us do? How can we make a difference in the world and begin to change our corner of the world so that there are fewer horrific tragedies like this? How can we bring light to those around us. Are there some around us who we have not noticed who may need more of that light and love?