“Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.” William Jennings Bryan

Sunday, March 6, 2011

March 6, 2011

This week I became angry at God.

I’ve never been that before. It was a new emotion for me. I wasn’t too comfortable with my anger, but it was honest.

I was seated in the back of St. Joes, the same church where I was married. I was there for a funeral mass. And as I sat through the ceremonies and prayers and communion, my sadness took change

A young guy, mid thirties, had died of a heart attack – a guy who ran, biked, surfed, coached sports – no couch potato, but a healthy guy. A healthy guy that shouldn’t have died. He had just come back from a bike ride with his kids…

He was survived by his wife, who works where I do, and his two young children. It just didn’t seem like something God would do. Take a young man from his family like that. The wife had spent the last few years beating breast cancer. And now this. And looking at the two kids – in shock, lost, devastated. I grew mad at God. I lowered my head and told God so

And that’s how I explained my feelings to people that day when we talked about the service or the family. Or how the wife was doing…it had made me mad at God

But was it ok to be mad at God? One of my friends said it was ok….all relationships have anger at times, differences, sometimes its good, just as long as it doesn’t go so far that it cant be turned back. Opposing pressure holds thing in place

Other things were going on this week too…a friend was in the hospital, another friend groping in the dark, and a couple I care about going through a very trying experience of loss- I was worried for all of them. There were other things going on too. All of it seemed so unfair and so unreasonable

But the only thing I know, knew to do, was to pray, and pray some more, and pray harder to a God with whom I disagreed. I prayed to God for all of them more each day, and more each night. I never prayed so much before this. And I haven’t stopped. I am still praying and praying. For the family, my friends, the couple….

….it’s as if the anger became a hand pulling me closer

and closer still

I just now realized it

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