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The only thing we have to fear ...Sunday, May 20, 2001
John 14:23-29 News stories about Colombia's drug wars, tribal feuds, political conflicts lead with the violence and end with the explanations. Good reasons abound for killing people in Colombia. Reasons. I do not give to you as the world gives. What reasons? Every one of those policemen had a mother and a father; what reasons would their ears hear, what explanation could ever part the waters of their wild grieving? What reason could I accept for the slaying of my son? The reasons would be hard, calculating, impersonal, political. They don't comfort, they don't touch, they answer nothing. Sometimes it's even worse. There are no reasons, no answers, even when the questions darken the sky, hang in the air heavy and desperate. You don't have to go to South America to die. Two days after Chris and Melissa flew away, a few miles outside Mahomet high school children were killed in their car. Driving to a Campus Life banquet at the Beefhouse, laughing, talking, their car slammed into a semi truck stopped on the highway. In front of the truck miles of cars lined up waiting for the cleanup of two earlier accidents. No sign, no warning, no notice, two young men suddenly dead.
T.S. Eliot wrote in The Hollow Men,
This is the way the world ends, Oh, God, I am profoundly arrogant in the way I live my life. So much revolves around my own comfort, my own security, my own my own my own. I truly think each day will go approximately as I have it planned. I truly expect each night to wake up the next morning. I have faith in my life. I believe in myself, and my own breathing, my own digestion, my mind working reasonably well. Until the shadow comes. The Shadow darkens my sky, and I peer into it, confused. And I begin bargaining with God, maybe move on to bargaining with the devil to get back what I had, what I expect, what I deserve. But in just a little time, something swallows me, eats me up. I am ignorant, foolish, ashamed. My power is hollow, I know it suddenly, in exhaustion I stop banging my drum. All I have left is the whimper. I have been tamed by the wild beast. In spite of my own best efforts, all my desire, all my hopes and plans and strength, I lose. When our son Marc, at age 17, took our car and drove away a year ago, I was so afraid. I cried and cried on Sunday morning when we realized he was gone. The note he left tore my heart with its kindness, with its resignation, with its love. The words he couldn't say out loud, the affectionate touches and actions that were so inconsistent in our life together, all flowed freely from his late night pen, "No matter what happens, I'll always love you. Your son, Marc." Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. There is nothing the world can say into the darkness of so much loss. No comfort, no assurance, no blessing. Reasons? What reasons? Where is my son? I want him back, I will do anything to get him back, I will do anything to get back to ... what? To knowing "everything will be OK." To having him with me, in my arms, in the sunshine of my love. I want for myself what God reserves for himself, I want to protect and preserve the life of my son:
Where can I go from your Spirit? In the middle of the loss, whimpering, I did know the peace Jesus gives. Reading the psalm, I realized who I was, and that made all the difference. He is God, and I am not. The best I can do is be like a "tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season." And that's OK. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Lord, I am ignorant and you are not. I am powerless and you are not. I am your child, you are my father. Put me in my place, oh what a joy to be placed carefully where you want me. Hold me hand and take me where you want me to go. |
The car bomb in Colombia didn't explode anywhere near Chris and Melissa, but we didn't know that till later. For two weeks our son, his friend Melissa and several other college students are in Bogota. 8,000 feet above sea level, Bogota sits astride the beautiful mountains of South America, an idyllic spot to live ... except that more police have been killed there (well over 5,000) during the last ten years than in any other country in the world.