An outlet for my own reflections and musings on life, people, and just all around stuff. (The title comes from one of my favorite Flannery O'Connor stories.)
Day1 Blog
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
-
For any of you who may still be following this blog, I have also started blogging as a Key Voice blogger for Day1.org. You can find my first post here.
I remember a time when I had come home for the weekend from college and found a folded, twenty dollar bill stuck in the driver side window of my truck. It was from my dad. That twenty and a cigar box of rolled quarters was just about the total amount of financial help I got from my dad for college. I remember him telling me once he wished he could have given me more to help pay for college. I don't think he's ever realized just how much he did help pay for college...and for so much more ever since. You see, I grew up spending weekends with my dad (he and my mom divorced when I was three), and a lot of those weekends I was holding the light so he could see where the oil leak was coming from, or I was holding the other end of the board so the saw wouldn't bind when he was cutting it, or I was the extra pair of hands to tote bags of sakrete. I was (sadly) the best help available when there was a leak in the roof or a chicken house to tear down for the tin. I've got a...
I was fine. For about three years I had been preparing myself for that day; I knew it was coming soon. I always asked myself what I'd do when it happened. Would I be upset? If I was, would I show it? Would the world stop spinning? What about everyone else; how would they react? It seemed like that day would never come, but then it did. And as soon as it did it started to feel like a distant memory--fading at first around the edges, creeping its way towards the center of my memory like a dissolving acid. We hadn't been home long. Our move back across the Mississippi River was a long haul, but we were here, back where there were hills, pork barbecue, and boiled peanuts. We hadn't even unpacked the boxes in our temporary rent house. I was getting used to the routine (or lack thereof) of being the "new guy" when my phone rang. I knew who it was and what they were going to say: "She's getting worse. It won't be much longer now. Can you do the funeral?...
It's taken me a while to write this entry (mostly because my schedule has been crammed lately), but after having time to "stew in my juices" I hope the following exposition is worth something. In light of the recent tragedy in Haiti, a lot of people have been asking where God fits in all of this. It happens nearly every time there is some cataclysmic event that shocks the world to attention. Not to mention that it's usually quasi-religious people asking religious "authorities" these kinds of questions. The questions usually go something like this (following a typical pattern dealing with theodicy...you can google that word): "Why would God let this happen?" "How could God do this?" "Where is God/hope in the midst of all of this devastation and despair?" These aren't unfounded questions, but it does seem (at least to me) that most of the people who are asking these sorts of questions are comfortably stationed in their (still ...
Comments
Post a Comment