It is the ides of February, 2018, winter in the Midwest and tourist season in Florida. Earlier this week in Florida, a nineteen year old man massacred seventeen students at his former high school. And, an off-duty Chicago policeman –a commander, at that– died on the steps of a subway entrance after being shot by a fleeing drug dealer. Why did these awful things happen? Are we content with simply saying there is no answer to that type of question or is there something deeper to reach for?
Does being spiritual mean that I believe in mystery but not a personal God? “Yep, I’m spiritual. I can find spirituality in a running stream, a setting sun, in the closing eyes of my baby daughter as she falls asleep. I am deeply moved by intentional evil acts but I don’t have answers to the horror of malice in our world. Religion talks a lot but it has no satisfying answers to the darkness that enters our lives.”
To the spiritual but not religious person facing evil, I want to say this: We Christians experience evil like you do. Our only hope is in a Savior who also experienced evil and taught us how to live through it. He called Himself the light in our darkness. Maybe if we stop denying that intentional evil exists in Parkland, Chicago and in our own communities, we can find the courage to counter evil with grace. Isn’t that what Lent strives to teach us?
I once met a man walking barefoot on the hot sidewalks of Las Vegas where I lived at the time. I thought he was some kind of a nut. He wore a rough sack over his thin body and slept in my yard overnight. The next morning when I asked him who he was he told me he belonged to an informal community of Christians called “The Children of God.” And, what’s your name? I asked. He answered “My name is LIGHTNING-AMEN.” Now, I’m wondering did his name mean a bolt of fire from the sky or the hope that dawn –a lightening– brings to darkness? These days we could use both. AMEN