Ives attends a lecture given by a mystic named A. I. Explixa. Ives has attended dozens of similar talks, searching for an explanation for a vision he had following a near-death experience. He doesn't find a whole lot of answers to his questions at these presentations. Yet, when Explixa makes the above comment, Ives somehow senses a connection with Explixa's words. Ives comes to believe that he was granted a glimpse of the world as seen through God's eyes.
I don't understand God's mind. On a superficial level, I get the whole idea of loving your enemies, helping the outcasts, praying all the time, laying down your life for somebody. I was raised on all of those maxims, and I try to follow them.
But there's a whole lot that escapes me. Like war and terrorism and genocide. Or breast cancer and world hunger and lymphoma of the brain. Don't get me started on Donald Trump. I just don't understand why God allows the world to be afflicted by these terrible things. What does humankind gain from events like the 9-11 attacks or the Holocaust?
Generally, I try to stay away from posing questions in this blog. I'm a firm believer that, if a writer asks a question. he or she better damn well know the answer. Tonight, however, I have no answer to that question.
Theologians would say that God didn't create or foster the brokenness of the world. The human race is responsible for creating the mess. Conflict in the Middle East, that's us. Ditto the Rwandan genocide and George W. Bush presidency. We did all of that. It's in how we respond to these things that God comes into play.
For example, just two days ago, there was another school shooting in the United States. A terrible loss of life. Now, God didn't put the guns in Chris Harper-Mercer's hands. God didn't tell him to go to that college campus and kill people. So, where is God in this tragedy?
I don't know. Perhaps there will be some political miracle in Washington, D. C. Republicans and Democrats will stop pointing fingers and debating the meaning of the Second Amendment. They will come together, say "enough is enough," and enact sensible legislation that will keep guns away from people like Chris Harper-Mercer. They will place greater value on human life rather than political agenda. That would be a God thing, I think.
I want to believe that, deep down, people are really good. I want to see the Christ (or Buddha or Muhammad) in everybody. God is unknowable, and tragedy exists everywhere. Yet, there is also grace available. God answers prayers. We're just too damn impatient and strong-willed to accept His answers most of the time. Human beings want to play God, not listen to Him.
Lisa Russ Spaar's poem for today is about a kind of grace, I think. How an act of destruction can search for meaning, become a bird's nest. How an old song can disappear, and a new poem emerge. It's all in how you look at it.
Saint Marty doesn't understand God, but Saint Marty trusts Him. That's half the battle.
Rapunzel's Braid
by: Lisa Russ Spaar
Long after it lost its girl,
the wind kept heaving its gifts
of fragrance and leaves
and gritty drifts of snow into the tower;
the tower itself roared like an empty shell.
The birds she'd tamed returned
and returned to the sill, the room,
picking each abandoned thing
to palest hull and meal.
At first, the severed braid
writhed on the cold flags.
Like all dying things, it burned
as fiercely as possible
for attention among the torn leaves,
the rain pooled on the floor
in mirrors of the sky's taunting anarchy.
By the time the mice and squirrels and birds
began to pull it apart, its burnished river
had faded into dull snakeskin,
a slipped noose. Still, for years afterwards,
it sought her out, strands helplessly
carried into the uplifted arms
and empty trunks of trees, into nests,
into pastures studded with animal droppings,
its song as thin as a line of ink,
its penned name fading, fading, then gone.
Confessions of Saint Marty
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