Tragedy in Connecticut

 I was going to write a couple of Christmas blogs,  when I got a call from my secretary. She just informed me about the big news of the day--the school shooting that left 26 people dead, mostly children. 

I do not know any details yet. I do not want to know any of the details. I do not need to.  Frankly, it seems to me that our voyeurism drives u to know about such things, not our concern or sympathy with victims. The news trucks parked outside the victims houses are not there to express concerns , but to get a story so  their company can make money of the tragedy.  We listen because  we are often as bad as they.  People deserve their privacy.  I  do believe that man of the madmen who do such things are motivated by the knowledge that they can count on the media to tell their story over and over, giving the criminals the notoriety their pathetic, twisted souls seem to crave.

But I do want to make one comment before I am asked, about how God  can allow such a thing to happen?

The short answer that God had nothing to do with it happening.

God did not make evil.  As St. Augustine put it,  evil is the absence of all that God created. Evil is like a hole in your sweater that causes  you to have to throw it out. The sweater that is bad-- it is the absence of the sweater in one  place that ruins  it. 

God created good things--good people,  good animals, a good world.  It is only when some part is missing--some inner control or restraint, that what God made good turns to bad.  Whether this perpetrator did this as a result of some inner madness brought on by a missing piece of his reason, or brought on by temptation rom a demon who itself was missing a piece of wholeness, I cannot say.  But I do believe could not have happened except there was an absence of all God had created.  It was not God's fault, but that of a broken world. 

God is present in the midst of it, to be sure. He is there with the policemen, counselors, clergy,  helpers,  sympathizers , investigators , and grieving parent.  He is with the victims,  comforting, embracing and weeping at what his world has become.
I grieve for the loss of these children.  My prayers are with the family. But I will not  waste one minute  seeking to know more about it.  There is nothing we can do in response to either prevent or comfort this outbreak of evil. All we can do is look to ourselves, our families and our communities to see where we can mend the brokenness of the world around us, and perhaps repair a breech in the goodness of creation, and prevent it from happening again.