faith shattered, broken - The Way to a Wonderful Life

          I watched the NBC Nightly News broadcast from Newtown, Connecticut after the tragedy that happened today, December 14, 2012, at the Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 children and 6 adults were killed.  A priest that was interviewed talked about the intensity of emotions; sobbing, yelling, people throwing themselves on the floor, and people doing what they could to comfort each other and pray together.  He said, "I don't know how you recover from something like this" ... and I was touched by the sincerity of his words.  This was not something that anyone in Newtown could have imagined would happen in their town, once voted the safest in America.

      The churches in Newtown were filled with people who came to comfort and to pray and pay respect for those who had lost their loved ones and especially those who lost their children.  I was reminded while I watched all of this that even the highly-enlightened Jesus wept when he learned that his friend Lazarus had died.  In that moment, I am sure that he felt what many of the people in Newtown felt today ... that painful-sense-of-absence of their loved one; the knowing that they were gone from this world.  And perhaps there are those who have felt their faith shattered ... their trust in G-d's Love broken. 

     Many times throughout the day as I thought about the pain that so many people in Newtown were experiencing, I felt my eyes get misty and I understood why Jesus wept.  Not because he doubted that his friend Lazarus was alive in the Spirit, but because his feeling of the loss of his presence in the here and now, was so painful to imagine.  Like Jesus, we have the awareness that we are part of the Spirit.  But, we are Spirit having a human experience and so our emotions express both from our Divine nature and our human nature, the "double-thread" that Walter Starcke wrote about.  In other words, our grief reflects the pain of feeling our faith shattered and broken, even when we know at a deeper level that our faith is also our comfort and peace.

     From the CNN Belief Blog this morning (Saturday, December 15th), I read: "Every single person who is watching the news today is asking ‘Where is God when this happens?’” says Max Lucado, a prominent Christian pastor and author based in San Antonio. "   And Franklin Graham stated, "The Bible tells us the human heart is ‘wicked’ and ‘who can know it?" ... but the Bible also tells us that we are created in the image and likeness of G-d.  And so we see that even the Holy scriptures cannot explain the Infinite Mystery that we call "GOD" ... and neither theologians nor scientists have been able to bring us any closer in our awareness of G-d ... this we must discover within ourselves.  Yet, we know that G-d has incarnated within us an infinite capacity to love, to comfort each other and to hope ... and in these we shall realize that much of G-d in our lives that we need.

      The Master Mind Jesus stated that "the Father is a Spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and in truth" ... and in these words we can realize that the Spirit is always with us, and just as the multiplication of the two fishes and the loaf of bread fed the multitudes, the Spirit of Love within each of us is multiplied and felt by all those who are receptive to it.  And as we feel the power of this Love within us, the Spirit of G-d Itself, we can realize that words like "wicked" and "evil" merely describe those "moments" in which our human-ness "feels" the absence of G-d, which is never the "truth" but just our lack of recognition of G-d's Presence.

      Joshua Klein sent the following to me that moved through his heart and mind as he processed the information coming from the Media reports of this tragedy in Newtown:
- Grief’s Child - You are not alone
In your darkest moments
You are not alone
I am here
To say you are here too
As a reflection
Honoring your presence
See me in you
See me
You are here with me
I will give you what you need
That which gives you all
If you but ask
I will not feed your darkness
I will not say you are alone
How could I
How could you dwell in darkness
And yet still I see you
Let me feed you with light
Take from me
I give you all
Even when you feel alone
I am here
Always
Just ask
And I will show you
You are not alone
See me as your mirror
As alive and important
Worthy because you are here
And so am I
You are never alone
I am with you always
In me you dwell
I am never alone 
- Joshua Klein
12-14-12

      Let's not let the "wicked" and the "evil" deceive us into believing that G-d can ever be "absent" ... but let our heart reveal to us the truth that we are never alone, and that always and forever "in Him we live and move and have our being" both here and in the hereafter.
AND SO IT IS!

Keep the faith! 
Rev. Henry Bates