Thinking about the upcoming one year anniversary of Sept. 11th, Dave had this to say:
A common theme — what kind of God lets this happen. I answer that with another question. What kind of a country is so selfish that it doesn’t see that 9-11 was [the] tiniest big tragedy viewed from a global perspective. What about famine in Africa? What about AIDS? They wonder at the spiritual vision of a person who jumps from the World Trade Center to certain death, but don’t wonder about the millions of people who do the same thing with tobacco? It’s out of balance. We’re out of balance. 9-11 was, IMHO, a small upheaval in getting to some kind of equilibrium in how the U.S. participates in the world, both from the U.S. perspective, and the world’s perspective. That we got so much sympathy says how big the human heart is. That there wasn’t more celebrating in the streets of world capitals says that they forgive us for our selfish attitude, which is back in force as if 9-11 never happened.
So what was the lesson of 9-11 that the U.S. has failed to learn? I think it’s that God doesn’t think we’re as important as we do. The concept of national security is obsolete. We can’t close our borders. We live on this planet with everyone else. Global warming, AIDS, terrorism, all penetrate all borders. New York is a world city. The last gasps of isolationism will be snuffed out by more humiliation, until we get the truth, we aren’t above the rest of the world, but we are part of it.
Amen.
Just some additional thoughts on the whole “What kind of God would let this happen?” sentiment.
Personally, I’ve never really subscribed to the belief that when bad things happen, it’s because God ‘lets them’ or (in what I feel to be an even more disturbing concept) because ‘it was part of his plan’. The first is bad enough of an idea — that we would believe in a God who would see horrid things happen, and just shrug his shoulders and stand aside as events progress. The second concept, though — that God actually plans these horrid events out, and we’re just too small-minded to understand why — I find absolutely reprehensible. Firstly, that anyone could willingly worship a being that they see as being that amazingly sadistic; and secondly, that they have such a condescending view of our own capabilities for thought, reasoning, philosophy, and other mental processes for both understanding the universe around us, and our relationship to whatever divine being we believe in.
My own take goes back to a quote I read a long time ago — unfortunately, one that I don’t believe I ever got put into my quotebook, so I don’t have a source for it. Two characters were speaking, one of which had just lost a child. She turned to the other character (a priest, I believe) and asked that same question of how God could let this happen. The priest told her that he didn’t believe God let these things happen — rather, that when her child died, God’s tears were the first to fall.
I can’t believe in a sadistic God, nor can I believe in an apathetic God. I can believe in a God that goes through our lives with us, sharing in our joys and our sorrows as they happen, helping us survive and make it through the tragedies, as well as rejoicing with us in our triumphs. Not controlling our lives, either for good or for ill, but giving us the strength and the courage to make it through whatever choices and obstacles we find from day to day, and joining in the celebrations when things work out.
So what kind of God would let these things happen? None that I could or would believe in. The kind of God that I can believe in is much more real and comforting to me than any God that would look down on us as condescendingly as so many people seem to assume.