Wishy

My faith is based on the idea that God loves all of us, he’d never pick favourites based on who was ‘better’ – that’s a human failing, our need to judge and prioritize. I think those who believe that God helps them directly and specifically when others are not helped are trying to rationalize the uncertain and random nature of life for themselves.

You are getting people to think, sister…that’s the makings of a quiet revolution.

Thank you, as always, for the wonderful inspiration.

Thanks.

Maybe God does intervene miraculously in response to prayer. I can’t rule it out (though I think that if He does so, it is rarely and for reasons that go beyond simply those that motivate such prayers).

What I can’t get over is the way people assume that stories like the one you heard on the radio are comforting. They are not. Or, at least, they are comforting only to those who least need comforting – the fortunate, who become anxious sometimes that they may not always be so fortunate.

I know a lot of people of the “God found me a parking spot” variety. I can see the logic of their stance – if they believe that God has done something for them, they feel responsible to bear witness to it and give thanks for it. But how can they not notice that their stories are a slap in the face to so many people who deal with real tragedy?

You spoke so eloquently to one of my main problems with faith: that if we are in the correct kind of conversation with God, then only good will befall us. You couldn’t get any more devout than my FIL, and his youngest son died alone in a bathroom stall of a drug overdose. The idea that God blesses some but allows anguish into the lives of others is hogwash. I get sick to death of people’s explanations of losses and sorrow as something ‘meant to be,’ or as ‘part of God’s plan.’ What, then, do we make of people who suffer constantly? Whether malnourishment or the threat of rape and bodily harm or ‘soldiers’ who might throw a newborn into a bonfire? The grieving family whose Marine father was blown up by an IED? People simply trying to buy bread in a Baghdad market, afraid of a car bomb?

This was a great post, and the one you awarded a Just Post to as well. Our world is surely mad, and mercy is the prescription, but is, unfortunately, in the shortest supply from the people who most need to dish it out.

you wrote: i do not deny grace…i would not want to. but i do not think you can bend it to your own will, or demand it. and i do not think being its recipient absolves you of the responsibility to be merciful – even just in choosing what you say – to those who clearly have not been so blessed as you.

and i have never been so in awe. this is a magnificent summary of exactly how i feel.

i do not deny grace. oh, bon. truly. you’ve moved me to tears.

i don’t think you need to worry too much about o. yes, he may learn to be ‘normal’ as society dictates, but with the parents he has, he will not do this obliviously. he will most certainly not be unaware. if he grows into an ostrich, he will know he is that.

i also feel the need to comment on the grief of others. m is in one of the most highly trained units in the military. i am constantly being reassured by his colleagues that he will be safe. that “only X guys in the unit have been killed since the war in iraq started”. yes. this may be true. but what of those families?? it really doesn’t matter if it’s 3, 300, or 3000 soldiers does it?? does one families grief subside because they are amongst others?? i doubt it very much.

you call it head in the sand – i call it my bubble… whatever one calls it, we are all guilty. we are all oblivious, conciously or otherwise, to the pain and suffering in this world.

and i truly hate to admit it, but sometimes i need to be oblivious. because i don’t know how i would survive otherwise…

And we are ostriches.

So true.

So what now? How on earth can we repair the colossal damage that has been done already by so much turning away?