The title for this post came from my old high school religion teachers classroom. Now as much as I liked the man, I'm sure he got it from somewhere else, however it was the first time I saw it, and I guess it stuck with me.
There are two ways to read it, God is no where and God is now here. For me it always depends on the day, not that each day I'm having a crisis of faith, but each day can be a struggle, especially with what transpires in the world around us, and how we are constantly reminded of it.
Last week there was a shooting, sadly, I'm sure there were lots of shootings, I'm sure there were lots of tears, hospital visits and funerals. But the shooting from last week is the one that was televised, tweeted about, Facebooked about and went viral. After a long day of work and class living under the academic rock that I do, I had no idea that it happened. It wasn't until talking with my friend Ian that it came up. I cant remember specifically how it came up, but I do know that it was after I peppered something about God into our conversation, as I often do, and his response was "not feeling to faithful after today" I was confused, had I missed something, was this the anniversary of a tragedy? As it turned out I had missed something? I had missed it all, I probably would have continued to miss it if I hadn't asked follow questions, and that was where the conversation came to an end, we both acknowledge the tragedy and how truly terrific it was. Yet in the back of my mind something was nagging at me.
I didn't have a response to offer why we should still be faithful. I didn't have an authentic explanation as to why I was still faithful. Sure I could have googled some cute saying, I could have found a cliche quote and offered a canned response. But I didn't, that would have been cheap, that would have been easy, that would have been anything but authentic, and it would have been anything but helpful.
So I let the conversation end with out simple acknowledgment of how tragic the event was. Then I resumed my day, I returned to my dwelling under my rock of academia, I read about early Christianity, and finished the night by watching the Producers which was fantastic. Yet in the back of my mind there was a nagging reminder that I had left the conversation unfinished. The next day I spent sometime trying to come up with a response, trying to come up with something other than the canned cliche response. I had no luck, I was luckless until I went to mass.
It was at mass, where I found the response I could offer, and sitting in my car in the church parking lot I feverishly typed my reply: "There was no Godliness there. In that moment, that tragic, terrible, most awful moment, God was missing. That act was purely selfish. Fortunately, not every moment is Godless, Fortunately, there are selfless people in the world. That, those selfless moments, those selfless people, are most beautifully where we will find God.
We can either believe that God is no where, or that as we go so to with us we bring God, and that God is now here.
Peace and Blessings Always
~M
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