The Inexplicable

"I've been crying all weekend," was one of the phrases I heard from one of our church's older members this past Sunday. What took place on Friday in Newton, Connecticut was a tragedy of epic proportions. Talk about the death of innocents; children mowed down by bullets fired by some stranger armed to the teeth; a young man who had no personal connection to any of the victims other than his mother taught at the school. But like most events of this nature the media feels obligated to invade sensitive private space and wring some kind of statement from the survivors and the families who have suffered the loss of their children, as if we really need to know what they are thinking and feeling. That they choose to say anything is a feat in and of itself. Such a loss as this renders even the most verbal among us, speechless. As if to make matters worse, others are using this incident to promote some other agenda, and I don't mean gun control. Some are seeing this as one more example of how far our country has fallen in its moral values. One politician went to far as to blame this tragedy as the result of the efforts to get God out of our schools, as if reading from the Bible that morning and saying prayers might have stopped a mentally ill person from entering the school intent to do his worst. This thinking is so theologically wrong on so many points it is not worth elaboration. Statements like these continue to give non-Christians a good excuse not to consider following Jesus. NO doubt over the next month or so a few brave souls may try to honestly make sense out of this incident. Someone will earnestly try to explain it or give some reason for it. Perhaps adequate treatment for the mentally ill will finds its way back into the public discourse. Perhaps the discussion of gun control particularly automatic weapons will be reopened. Years from now perhaps we will be able to look back and see that something good has come from this. However, we have no guarantees. We can't automatically assume that something good will come from something done for evil. So what is a good person of faith to say or do in the face of this tragedy? Nothing. Now is not the time to say something, our silence is the best compassion we can give. If we are called to do anything is is simply to join with God and weep with those who weep.