The question of the day .....

The Internet can be a very useful tool, it allows access to all manner of information, knowledge and allows us to communicate effectively and asynchronously.  It allows for commerce and trade, investment and finance. It is always open 24/7/ 365 , so that our wheels are always turning.  It has its bad sections as well.

One area of the Internet that will always be suspect is the forum, or the comment section of any Internet page.  We have things like Drudge and Huffpost and CNN, and they report news stories.  The story of course is the Newtown Shooting tragedy.  Many noble statements have been left on forums expressing sympathy and grief and and many simply awful things have been said.  Gun control advocates are out in force, just as those who  own guns are running their comments.

One comment  though jumped out at me, it was in the form of a question it said :

How could a loving and supposedly benevolent God allow this to happen ?

It was not posed in the forum in a form demanding an answer, it was posed and put there to mock a faith and a belief system.  It was clearly saying that  there is no God. For if there was a God how is it possible that evil and pain and suffering could exist.
 That was the  intent and purpose of that forum posting.

I don't pretend to know what God's plan is for anyone, and I can't answer the question of How could a loving God allow this to happen.  But I do know this, when people of faith have something like this happen they go to places of worship and the get on their knees and they cry and they ask  God , How could you let this happen  ?  God does not answer directly in most instances that I know of.  But what God does is illustrative.  God reminds us that we are people of free will and that we get to choose good or evil.  We get to decide that we need to reflect on what is good and what is evil.  We need to understand that much of the so called evil and pain and suffering originates with man, not with God.

In 2011 , there were 8500 lives lost to gunshot wounds.  Perhaps a loving and benevolent God allows 20 beautiful and innocent lives to be lost for the purpose of slapping us and slapping us hard and waking us to the knowledge that we are committing terrible atrocities in the world, in our cities in our country and we need to look .  We need to look at ourselves and come to understand that we are in need of reflecting better on the value of life.

  We need to look and see where we are headed.  We need to reflect on the need for guns, we need to look at the reasons why people justify ownership.  We need to look at the evils of drugs and the impact on our crime rates and the fear that crime instills in our people.  I understand that Florida's conceal and carry laws were in response to a run a way crime problem, aggressive drug related muggings and more aggressive home invasions.  Those are all man made cases of suffering and fear.

How could a good and benevolent God allow such a thing.  I do not know, but in my mind the good and benevolent God is telling me that we need to speak, to use our voice, to address the full gamut of issues presented by the death of these children. 

On my short list of issues presented are:  Responsible parenting, surely Adam Lanza's mother was lacking in that regard. Surely no rational mother would allow high powered firearms to be present in the home with a mentally compromised individual.  God is saying to each of us as a parent to examine our approach to our children.  We as parents are often confronted by dilemmas of children that defy explanation and put us to the test.  We need to slow down and be considered in how we approach solutions.  Was it any form of solution to allow a very clearly different child to access firearms.  I feel for her , but there was a closed off situation that was allowed to develop.

Guns, they are everywhere, they are killing people everyday.  Do we need them. God is saying to us to look at these instruments and telling us to get them in check.  Why do we have such an attraction to them, how did I get through 62 years without having one.  Why in the wake of this tragedy are gun sales going through the roof.  The government is calling for control, the citizens are arming for Armageddon.

Mental illness,  I am reminded that these people did not ask to be afflicted, in the same way that a cancer patient did not ask for cancer..  We treat cancer but ignore mental illness.  What does this say about us as a loving and benevolent society.  We have enough money to bomb Afghanistan into the 21st century, yet we treat mental illness as if we were in the dark ages.

How could a good and benevolent God allow this to happen, I do not know but I am getting the feeling that there is a message that we are being sent.  And I for one, will get on my knees and I will pray for some answers from that God, for I know that there is something out there that does respond to us as his or her people and  hopefully we will get to know why this awful tragedy was allowed to happen, even if the reason is that others will be prevented.  But one thing is for sure, God did not have much to do with its happening, that is more the doing of man.

And although we haven't even finished burrying the young children, we are screaming at each other about guns, and we are out buying more and more of them.  Does God want us to fear each other so much that we have to be armed like this.