God Isn't Random

The deadliest killing spree in U.S. history happened this morning: at least 32 people killed and more than two dozen others injured during the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech (according to the latest "Washington Post" story).

I'm afraid to read the whole report because it will trigger the same debilitating anxiety I felt in October of 2002 during the sniper attacks that we suffered here in Maryland a year and a month after 9/11.

The last attack, where a 13-year-old boy was shot outside of his middle school in Prince George's County, Maryland, happened less than fifteen miles from my home. The morning news said that the shooter most likely escaped unto Route 50, and might be heading to Annapolis.

Outdoor recess and PE class were held inside on that beautiful October day at most schools in surrounding counties. The public parks were empty, despite the crisp autumn air everyone awaited after a hot and humid summer. I couldn't decide whether or not to cancel David's 15-month checkup at a doctor's office right off the highway. Then I grew angry that violence and hatred and crime had somehow interrupted my day's plan.

During moments like those--when anxiety has me by the throat like a robber--I go back and read the Gospel According to My Theology Professors: Joe Incandela and Keith Egan.

Egan, one of the country's experts on Carmelite spirituality, cites the words of Teresa of Avila to help people like me out of anxiety's grip: "Fix your eyes on the Crucified and everything will become small for you." In his words, "Our fears will become absolutely insignificant compared to the love evoked by the Crucified Jesus. Our worries, fears and anxieties will lose their grip if we take no false comfort in them but, instead, allow the Crucified to teach us how to love our sisters and brothers, day in and day out, with a love like that of the Good Samaritan who reached out the beleaguered stranger with uncommon generosity."

Terea of Avila's poem, known to many as her Bookmark, packs the power of five Valium:

"Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
All things pass away:
God never changes
Patience obtains all things.
The one who has God
Finds nothing lacking
God alone suffices."

Last winter, when the three-month-old brother of Katherine's preschool buddy died of SIDS and a friend of a friend's son went to bed with a fever and woke up dead, I e-mailed my other wise professor and asked him why crap befalls decent folk (or, as Harold Kushner says, bad things happen to good people).

Me: "Hi Joe! I need a refresher course. As Christians we believe God is all-powerful, right? As such, do we believe all evil is a product of our free will to chose pride and selfishness instead of love, and that all that is wrong with our world is related to the Fall (Adam and Eve)?"

Joe: "Hi Therese! I always enjoy getting e-mails with the subject heading 'The Problem of Evil'! I think the major divide in theology is between those who (like Kushner) affirm a limited (suffering) God and those who want to stick to the traditional divine attributes (like Thomas Aquinas). While it may give us all sorts of warm squishies to think of a God who suffers alongside us, what we really want is a God who can SAVE us from suffering. That is, if I'm drowning and someone else is next to me in the water who also cannot swim, I might appreciate the company, but I would really question what the ultimate benefit of that company is."

Me: "But if God CAN save us and is just and good, then why doesn't he choose to save us? Or save us all the time? Also, if all evil isn't attributed to the Fall, then what do we as Christians attribute it to?"

Joe: "If God saved us all the time, then the world would be so unpredictable that it would lack the kind of stability needed for most human activity. This has been called the 'cosmic nursery school' view--one does good and gets rewarded, and does bad and gets punished. But if that happened all the time, then God would be constantly intervening in the world in ways that would make any sort of regularity in our lives look impossible. It would also make something like compassion impossible. Compassion (or work for justice or whatever good deed you want to substitute here) requires a regular world, and a regular world means that some people get hurt who don’t deserve to get hurt. I suppose that in a broad sense, this all can be attributed to the Fall. But I think that another reasonable answer is that this is the price of a finite world. Only God is infinite and unlimited. Because of that, any created entity will be corruptible or conflicted in some way. Corruptible or conflicted things tend to rub up against other corruptible or conflicted things, and the result is physical or moral evil."

Ironically, both profs are repeating Teresa's Bookmark: all things are changing and random except for God, and the one who has God lacks nothing and can therefore be at peace in a changing, random, and confusing world.

Knowing that allowed me to go on with my day in October of 2002. I let the doctors poke my little guy with sharp needles and inject whatever virus they say he needs to stay healthy. I walked him to the empty parks, where we played alone until naptime. And I thanked God for a faith that isn't random.

I guess that's what I have to do today as well, and pray, pray, pray, for the families of the victims--that their faith might console them in the aftermath of this atrocious tragedy.