Things are out of whack

There are no words. The world seems to be collapsing around us. Thursday we awoke to one of the most terrifying hail storms I’ve experienced in 50 years in Texas. Today we woke to the news of the attacks in Brussels, a lovely city in a peaceful country. For those of us in North Texas, the news got even worse: the wife of the Van Cliburn-winning pianist probably suffocated her daughters and stabbed herself; a man went into a WalMart in East Texas, shot another man and then shot himself. When does the violence end? How do we cope with it?

Brussels is rightfully the tragedy most on our minds. Can you imagine sending someone you love off to work—or travel—only to learn that they’ve been killed in a suicide bomb explosion? On an ordinary day when you expected the world to go on as it always has? The mind boggles. On 9-11, Belgians held hands in support of America; today we pray in support of them. I am proud of America’s reaction but scared by the response of the two leading Republican candidates. Neither learned from the Bush’s trumped up (no, not a pun) war in Iraq. They would willingly lead us into such another futile war, sacrificing thousands of people in Middle Eastern countries as well as our own troops. It didn’t work before, and it won’t work again. I am afraid of the war-mongering mentality more than I am afraid of ISIS..

For Christians, this is Holy Week, the most sacred time of the year. I write as a Christian who feels this holy time has been defiled. But I am also convinced that we must keep the faith and believe. No, it won’t bring back the people who died today, nor will it heal the injured. But faith—whatever your chosen religion—seems to me the answer. I pray for the Muslims in this country who now live in fear. If my understanding is correct, the Muslim faith calls for peace, not violence It doesn’t sanction beheading stoning, etc. Yet people preying on the fear of Americans have made terrorists of all Muslims in this country. Do you know how many there are? Fifty thousand in Houston alone; an astounding number in the entire world. As one Facebook post said tonight, if they were all terrorists, we’d all be dead. We must stand by our Muslim neighbors and friends and also our friends of color who are under attack if not suspicion now.

Pray for our friends and neighbors, pray for the world, pray for this country. Things are really out of whack right now. And I for one am grieving.

How easy it is to be spooked

So much tragedy in the news--always, but it somehow seems worse to me tonight. The stabbing at a Pennsylvania school--you reach out emotionally over the distance to the parents of the wounded, especially the one boy on life support, and to the family of the perpetrator. Grief that I cannot imagine. And the hit-and-run at the California day care center, with one child dead and several injured--as with Newton, how do you send your young child to school one day and then learn that he or she is never coming home again? The ongoing search for Malaysia Flight 370--those families must be numb by now, and yet they need the closure.
I see minor tragedies all around me--ones that don't make the world weep but only those directly involved. They touch my heart as much. I'm known for posting lost, found, and endangered dogs on Facebook. Tonight I read about a woman whose Westie was apparently taken from her driveway. Several other expensive lap dogs were missing in the same Fort Worth neighborhood which points to a thief who probably took them for sale. I know only too well the panic that comes when a dog is missing. I watch Sophie like a hawk because she's convinced there's a great big, wide, welcoming world out there. She knows nothing of cruelty to animals--why would she? She has a coterie of people who love her. And she knows nothing of cars, has no street sense. A dog fight? What's that?
Tonight I got spooked, and I think it's because of that Westie in the context of larger tragedies. Sophie was outside, and I was at my desk when I heard a noise in the driveway behind me. Actually it sounded like drops of water, but I ruled that out since it's not raining. I decided I'd feel better if Sophie were inside--she's quick to bark at both imaginary and real threats, though we have few of the latter.
I went to get her, but she didn't come and I felt a moment's panic. If I'd thought for a second I'd have realized none of the motion-sensitive lights came on, and Sophie rarely comes immediately when I call her. But, with my usual bribe of "Treat!" I slammed the door and went into the kitchen, a technique that usually work. But I was thinking, "What if she doesn't come this time?" (I've been working on a Kelly O'Connell mystery tonight, and Kelly does a lot of "what if" thinking!) Of course, when I went back she was on the deck and ready to come in. I had let my imagination run away with me again--better at nine at night than three in the morning!
But I think we get more easily spooked in a world where tragedy, major and minor, seems to be all around us. I remember when that tsunami hit in December several years ago, a non-believer friend said to me, "I see you so firm in your belief and I think I could join you, but then something like this happens. How can I believe in a God who lets a tsunami kill thousands?" I was at a loss, so I asked a ministerial friend who said, if I remember rightly, "Shit happens." But I think the best answer I got was from another minister who said, "God doesn't prevent tragedy--man-made or natural. But he is there to guide us through it, to wrap us in his love and hold out his hand." I believe that.
And I'm not going to get spooked at three in the morning. Now I have to go let Sophie in again.