Previous Post (Removed)

As long as our beliefs are held inside, and not shared in any way, it is easy for them to be flawed and still govern our thoughts and actions. Once you share them and people you trust and love can comment on them, you can see the flaws, and, hopefully you can change them or even discard them.

So the post on Beginnings and Endings, which some of you may have read before I removed it, helped me adjust some beliefs I have held that were fatalistic. They seem to offer some comfort on a small scale, but they don't really make any sense on a larger one. The Holocaust, the Virginia Tech tragedy - these can't be understood, really. Christ spoke of two tragedies in His own time, but explained neither. He burst some common explanations given by teachers in His day, but He did not offer an alternate explanation.

The broken nature of humanity partially explains these horrors, but it can't make us comprehend God's portion. Free will and God's desire for us to be His children, not His slaves or automata, also helps us make some sense of human tragedy. Remembering that human existence is not just about our time here also helps. But while we have some pieces that begin to make sense of the existence of evil in God's presence, we can't fully comprehend it; we can't really get our minds around it.

And this is where faith must enter, I suppose. Our "hope in things unseen."

"I believe in the sun even when it isn't shining
I believe in love even when there's noone there
And I believe in God even when He is silent."

This was scratched on the wall of a cellar by a victim of the Holocaust, beneath a star of David.

My prayers are for all who die tragically, and for all those who remain behind without them. As a parent I pray especially for anyone who has lost a child. And I give praise and thanks for people like the professor at Virginia Tech, a Holocaust survivor, who gave his life while his students escaped. May God have mercy on us all, may He bless us and keep us, may His face shine upon us and give us peace. Amen.