WAITING FOR GOD
When I was a child I had a dream that I was standing in a spot near my home where four streets intersected. I was in the wide middle area where I could look down all four streets, and I was waiting for God. Whichever way He came, I reasoned, I would be able to see Him. In my dream He never came. In my dream, I felt my heart break and hot tears roll down my face. I knelt and pleaded for God to come, but still He didn’t. I have never forgotten that dream; it’s as present to me now as when I had it decades ago.
On Sunday afternoon, needing some breathing room from the news about the Orlando shooting and the ache that kept getting deeper, I drove to my old neighborhood and walked to that spot. The child who once waited for God there in a long-ago dream is now a woman trying to make sense of the burgeoning violence and hatred in this country and in this world — a darkness that seems to have no end. Once again, I’m waiting for God — praying for some kind of answer to a madness that has spread like a plague across the human race. Not only the madness of mass executions like the slaughter of 50 people in a nightclub on Saturday night, and all the other mass shootings, but the madness of people who refuse to take any steps to stop it. People who think more guns are the answer.
Einstein said, “We will not solve the problems of the world from the same level of thinking that created them.” To look at the soaring body count in this country and elsewhere from innocent people being mowed down by semi-automatic weapons — weapons of war — and say that more guns is the answer is essentially to say ‘I like this darkness. I have faith in the darkness and I’m going to contribute to it.’ God can’t take from us what we won’t surrender to Him, so it looks like we all might be waiting for Him for a very long time.
Einstein also said, “I want to know the thoughts of God.” So do I. I think He must be weeping right now.
I dare say, Patti, that even Godot is waiting for Godot, but it will require the patience of Job, You’re insights seem to skirt the heart and bypass the rest of us, and you do it with an ability to keep us thinking about the very arts we tender amongst ourselves; the hopes, the dreams, the biblical promise that perhaps tomorrow there will exists a light. In truth, as long as God’s greatest creation is presumed to be human, we may never meet a creator of pure good. I am left to wonder….as man destroys man, as human beings defile and torture our neighbors, our animal brethren are left bearing the gifts of innocence and purity, and their wait for God may be far more brief than our own. Every time you put pen to paper, Patti, I am drawn to emote while I ponder,
Perhaps, Patti, it is in that moment where we all feel that distance, is when God is most present & available. We need to be still & listen for the quiet whisper & evidence of Him in the most unlikely things, person & place
I know how you feel yet, living in the suburbs of Chicago, I wondered if the violence from the city would make it out here. So many innocent lives being lost every day. I stopped watching the news and ended up watching reruns on TV shows that escape me from all this hatred. Yet, it goes without saying that when the show is over reality sets in again.
I have been waiting for God for years and yet have done nothing. That is probably why I am working in a dead end job and still living with my parents and not doing what I love and want to do. I once heard a story maybe it was a movie or in a book I once read, about a man who would go to church and pray to God asking ‘Please let me win the lottery and did this every week. The response was not winning the lottery until the voice from above said ‘I can’t help you win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.’ Whether or the story is true, the theme of the story because very clear that we should do something and not sit on the sidelines and these horrible acts happen but like myself I am afraid to do something. I can only control the things I can control and other with the help of the universe will all things will hopefully fall in line. God comes through in many different we just have open to all that comes our way even though we may be torn, heartbroken or afraid to move forward in our lives.
There is a story often told of a young boy lingering for many minutes in a noose strung up by the Nazis. One onlooker said “where is God? Someone else said “God is that boy, waiting for his death,” Or something similar. It seems we cannot escape the tragedy of human evil.