In countless blogs and public fora,
People try to get Aurora;
And no one thinks the concept odd,
To raise the question “where was God?”
To take just one example, CNN’s Belief Blog is asking the question “Where was God in Aurora massacre?”
Religion, it seems, brings out the best in us: a pastor from Colorado wrote that the whole thing was indeed an exercise of god’s will. A pastor has to know these things, you know? Of course, others disagreed, because when it comes to what God believes, everybody is an expert.
It astonishes me that in this century, a national news organization in an educated, industrialized nation, enables this sort of superstition. It’s one thing for a church to promote its beliefs, but a news organization?
In fairness, they did note, toward the bottom of their article, that some commenters found such tragedies to challenge the notion of a god’s existence at all.
And I checked my calendar, and got back to writing.
According to the christian post, Holmes is a christian:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/james-holmes-colorado-shooter-described-as-normal-christian-boy-amid-mental-health-investigation-photo-78623/
Where was “god”? Maybe it was helping the shooter succeed, just like it helped the 9/11 hijackers.
Selective Miracles
Just listened to a parent thanking God or Jesus Christ
(Or their angels, a convenient second string,)
For protecting his young children from the harm of being sliced
Through with bullets in a maniac’s last fling.
Twelve are dead. One has to wonder, couldn’t Jesus multi-task
Or call in some apostles on his team
To prevent the death of all of those who would have surely asked
And to mitigate some carnage on the scene?
If we’re so quick to credit God or Jesus for our luck
Who is it that we credit with the deaths?
It’s obvious that something here has really gone amok
If God won’t claim the credit for the rest.
It’s a sad enduring question that has puzzled all mankind
And the answer? People here are still awaitin’
So to get their “loving” God and “ caring” Jesus off the hook
People took the cue and then invented Satan.
With permission, Joan, I’d love to put this up as a guest post. Let me know!
Oh–and if you have it published elsewhere, I’ll happily link!
Where was god? Same place he was in every tragedy/disaster.
By all means use it. I’d be honored. No. It’s not ‘published’ except in the print-outs of my poems my kids get to suffer through every Xmas. (grin)