Yesterday, a couple of bombs went off in the Boston Marathon at the finish line for those of you who haven't heard yet. There were 3 people dead, one was an 8 year old boy, one was a 29 year old woman, and I haven't read about the third one yet. Such a tragic event to say the least, and leaves us all with questions.
The atheist will probably take this as a time to say something along the lines of, "If God is good, than why does stuff like this happen?" There's no easy answer to this question. The only thing I can come up with at all is that He allows free will in mankind, and some people needlessly abuse that free will to terrorize others. Other people will ask, "Where is God?" Personally, I think He's spending a lot of time with people in mourning right now. When Jesus was incarnate, he spent a lot of time entering others' suffering, weeping right alongside other loved ones.
It broke my heart to hear that media vans had all pulled up in the 8 year old's family's yard and driveway. Why must we have an interview right away? Is that not pouring a huge dose of salt on a very fresh wound? Why would you do that to a family who just lost an 8 year-old son? That just doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me. Are good ratings of such importance that you're not going to allow a family to grieve an unimaginable loss? Give them some space, please.
Tragedies like yesterday's marathon really put things into perspective, don't they? They have a way of making us realize what's really important. Things like those force us to strip away the petty everyday stuff that we let get beneath our skin and make us grateful that we survived another day. There are no certainties in life except death itself, and when you start realizing that you're not as invincible as an 18 year-old boy typically thinks themselves as, it makes you examine your life. Are you living a life worth living right now? Are you living a life worth imitating?
It also disturbs me how newscasters are suddenly experts on terrorism. I watched several interviews on Roku (which is another blog altogether btw) and in several of them the newscasters acted like they had some unwarranted authority on the subject of the bombings. One in particular, was interviewing some counter-terrorist guy who clearly knew about the situation better than she. She asked questions though as if he was a complete moron who was nothing more than a mere passerby. Her arrogance was truly baffling in a time like this.
How can we work for peace in the midst of this type of tragedy? How can we live up to our calling as peacemakers? I don't know how that works but I'm willing to learn. I do know though that peace by the sword as the Romans practiced it and now America practices isn't truly a peace at all but a false sense of security that is shattered at times like these.
No comments:
Post a Comment