Making Sense of the Senseless

I pray for change. The demonstrations in New Delhi call to mind the orange revolution in the Ukraine, and the protests we witnessed in Mumbai after the 11/29 attacks, more than the so-called Arab Spring. The death of 4 children in the infamous Birmingham church bombing help to galavanize American opinion behind the civil rights movement. Perhaps this atrocity will help to bring about genuine protection for women in a society that views them as unwanted or expendable. 

I want to believe that at some point as she lay clinging to life, she cried out to the only deity in the entire pantheon of the East or the West who actually gives a damn about suffering and victimized human beings. And thus she is now with Jesus, drinking in unending beauty and awaiting the resurrection of a newly-whole body.

And I pray for her fiancé. There is no mental health program, counseling technique, or pharmaceutical that can heal such horrific memories. But if Jesus can turn an instrument of torture into a ornament of beauty, he can bring redemption out of even the worst violation.