Is it the availability of news from every corner of the world at any given moment, or is the perpetual fascination of everything from the remotely amiss to the fully twisted, or is it the exponentially growing number of immoral, damaged, and dysfunctional human beings that has made living in grace and thanksgiving nearly impossible?
I am struck motionless this morning by what has come to be an everyday occurrence somewhere around the world in local news -- the disappearance of a child.
A seventeen year old girl, Chelsea King, has been missing since last Thursday here in San Diego. A beautiful, bright young girl -- a straight-A student and apparently a member of the San Diego Symphony -- who never returned home from what seems to be an afternoon jog at the Rancho Bernardo Community Park. It was here where her car was found.
What makes this real for me? Why her, why now? What separates Chelsea from all the rest in this moment? What leaves a pool of tears at the foot of my God trembling in the thought of how could this happen?
Since the first of the year, I have traveled twenty miles each week (and sometimes twice) across the dark and windy road overlooking Lake Hodges -- the local reservoir adjacent to the area being investigated. Under normal conditions, the lake is a refuge, complete with dirt trails and chaparral, rabbits and egrets, and chock-full of peace and quiet. For the last eight weeks, I have dropped my girl off at the very same park.
Oh sure, she is collected each time by a team of fellow softball players, and eventually a coach or two, as each one arrives for practice. But having first heard the details this morning, my heart stopped...the Rancho Bernardo Community Park.
It is the very same park.
Once practice is over, her daddy brings her home to me, once or twice a week -- from the very same park!
Once or twice a week, I have entrusted the Universe to have my girl under her wing while I just drop her off at the very same park.
As a mom, I can't tell you how many things begin to go whirling around at light speed in the mind's eye. Whether it's the proximity, or the face of a girl missing who could very well be mine, or the nauseous feeling this man may have walked the borders of the same field as my own girl was in the outfield catching fly balls -- the entire scenario not only makes me sick to my stomach, it entangles me, and sweeps me up into the worst news a parent could ever imagine.
I realize that half the time (or all the time) I wear my emotions on my sleeve -- but this seems almost overwhelming to me, all I can do is cry.
If you read me regularly, you may remember when I had the false alarm this last fall, where my girl was not where she was supposed to be and it turned into an afternoon unglued when brushed with the frightening scare that something bad might have happened to my baby girl. My heart aches for these parents and for the people who know her and have grown to love her.
How is it we can cry for people we don't even know?
How is we can attach ourselves to their experience and their sorrow as if it were our own?
How is it that bad things happen to good people all the time?
How is it possible to go on living our lives day after day surrounded by the actions of people so disturbing, so profound, so unattached to what normal, healthy individuals cling to day in and day out -- the belief in something greater than ourselves, a faith to act accordingly and reverently, or simply an ability to live in community with one another in love, grace and goodness above all else?
"A Call to Persevere"
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence
to enter the Most Holy Place...
by a new and living way...
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart
in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us
from a guilty conscience and having our bodies
washed with pure water.
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope
we profess, for he who promised the faithful.
And let us consider how we
may spur one another on
toward love and good deeds.
Let us not give up meeting together,
as some are in the habit of doing, but
let us encourage one another...
So do not throw away your confidence,
it will be richly rewarded...
But we are not of those who shrink back
and are destroyed, but
of those who believe and are saved.
Hebrews 10:19-39
The very ideas that fueled the brilliance of our founding fathers, the framers of our Constitution, came from our connection to something greater than ourselves.
We can gather support by a passage from The 5000 Year Leap,
"Furthermore, each person knows that he is a something. He also knows that a something could not be produced by a nothing. Therefore, whatever brought man and everything else into existence also had to be something. IT follows that this something which did all of this organizing and arranging would have to be all-knowing to the full extent required for such an organization and arrangement. THIS something would therefore have to be superior to everything which had resulted from this effort. THIS element of superiority makes this something the ultimate "good" for all..."By faith we follow, by faith we walk in the way in good times and bad, and by faith we persevere -- so that one day, we can all live in love and peace with one another.
This is our country's cornerstone, whether liberals wish to admit it or not; any effort to take away the power back behind this level of faith will be met with unwavering strength of conviction meeting action.
A Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, remarked often of this faith -- comparing the downfall of Europe linked to the belief of "religion and liberty were enemies of each other"-- adding
"the sects {different denominations} that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each set adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God....there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America."But, his most poignant observation comes when he said the following:
"I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
We find strength to gather ourselves on a day like today from our faith, our ability to persevere in the face of destruction and unfathomable loss; and it is by faith we entrust ourselves to live in community with one another in peace, even for the unbelievers in this world; for who would ever wish darkness upon another soul, another family, another life much like our own?
Those who do, are sick; they are lost souls living a life of struggle of one kind or another, unaffected by what pain and horror they inflict upon another human being.
As a whole, America has a deeper connection to the secular rule over the Golden Rule -- we have grown so accustomed to the separation of church and state (and it's adverse affects to the quality of life in society), carrying it to such extremes, there is tragically more outrage to allow for prayer in schools, than over the loss of daily reverence to some kind of moral code -- and explicity our attention and duty to teach such "from man to man".
Back in the day, it was our duty, a duty in which we were not only fully aligned with, but were remarkably passionate about -- we gathered together from all denominations and faiths to create a world of honor and goodness, conducive to building the greatest nation that has ever lived; understanding of the perseverance and tenacity it would take, generation after generation, to ensure a civil, obedient, peaceful society; a society safely guarded under the word of God and enriched by the principles deeply rooted in each one's individual responsibility to uphold.
Respect to the Law of the land, and to one another, was everything --
in a world where something didn't come from nothing.
It came from Something;
a Something so great, so some kind of wonderful,
we honored It in our daily life by being good people,
living in God's grace.
My heart cries out for a gathering of people like this.
Today, my heart breaks for Chelsea's family;
and later today, I will have to go to the very same park.
It will be there
that I will say a prayer
for us all.
Make it a Good Day, G
If you haven't already done so,
Please click on Dear America above and listen to your song of the day.
It is to honor Chelsea King and all children everywhere.
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