Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.
- Elie Wiesel (Night)
“Where is God? Where is He?” another inmate asks later, when the SS forces the entire camp to watch the public hanging of a child. “Where is He now?” And all the fifteen-year-old Elie can answer is trough a voice within him saying, “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging on this gallows.”
(an excerpt from Unspeakable by Os Guinness)
Where is God when mad men run rampid across the halls of an institution? Where is God when Jews are forced to watch their children burned alive in fiery graves in the pits of Hell known as Auschwitz? From the voice of a fifteen-year-old we hear a truth. He is in the halls and in the furnace. He is being shot, burned, and broken once more by His creation that has gone mad.
It is simple to say that the problem is not that God has left us, but we have left God. Yet what does that really do for us. It’s like telling the people in front of the gunman that he has a gun. It doesn’t really help us. Neither does arguing about gun control, lock down procedures, or police actions. We what someone to blame, so that we don’t have to blame ourselves…
Evil happens. It exists. And it’s not to blame here. It is here, but not to blame here. Neither is Satan nor God. Blame doesn’t help us fix the problem. It doesn’t help us fix ourselves or our world. It’s a way of coping with the stress and pressures of a world gone mad. If we could only find out who is to blame, then maybe, just maybe, we could fix the problems we have. This will happen again. Another rouge individual with a score to settle will fill with rage and blast his or her way onto CNN and Fox News solving this injustice with a 9mm and blood laced trail. And then we will be right back to where we began. Blaming someone else.
But if we just got rid of guns… They would use knives. It’s not the weapons that kill people, but people that kill people. Cain most likely picked up a rock and slammed it against the head of Able to commit our first encounter with this Evil. Are we to outlaw rocks now too? Often blame never ends. It just continues in a vicious cycle that does more to dehumanize us than the original offense. The cesspool of political rhetoric that will spark fight after fight will divide communities and create more hate and bitterness than most can bear. In our time of greatest need to be communal, blame separates us from our community as a whole. It is this time together that is needed to resolve the tragic events that befall us. What are we to do?
The Jewish people throughout the ages have learned the hard way. Slavery, desecration, holocaust and displacement, a practice has evolved throughout the centuries. It does not consist of blame or word, rather presence. It is called shiva. When tragedy strikes or death makes itself known, the community comes together, to sit together, and to mourn together. If it is a time to cry, you cry. If it is a time to be silent, you remain silent. If one needs to argue, even with God, it is a time to argue. With Job his friends came over and sat for days before speaking. When Lazarus died many Jews came to sit shiva with Mary and Martha and when Jesus died, did the disciples not find themselves scared and frightened together?
As many words as I have written, the time is not for words. It is a time for silence, crying, and community. The young adults at Virginia Tech have much to teach us about what we should do in the face of Evil. We confront it together, with those we love, and do not give up on the faith that we have in each other. Where is God? He was in the halls and classrooms on Monday and he sits shiva with us now.
Labels: Jesus, Job, Shiva, Shooting, Virginia Tech
