The attack last December on a school in Pakistan left me numb. Gunmen killed 132 children in a precise and thorough fashion without remorse. That I have a distant relationship to Pakistan is inconsequential. It was a horrifying attack perpetrated by people whose thinking had narrowed into a cold, methodical ice pick.
I didn’t know how to feel—I felt indignant, angry, frustrated, sad and ultimately helpless to respond appropriately. I wonder if there is an appropriate response as a person of faith, as a Christian, as a Canadian Presbyterian? The interlocking emotions of anger and helplessness tighten in my gut.
I feel much the same way towards the missing, dead, lost native women across Canada. A May 2014 RCMP report numbered 1,017 such women—mothers, sisters, God’s children.
I sense the indignation, anger and frustration in the aboriginal community as they call for hearings and more investigations. Something must be done. Something more constructive.
And along with them, I too wonder what more can be done. Do we as a church have a responsibility to these women? To those children in Peshawar?
In January, I heard about a young man who grew up in the West Bank in a family that has links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. He was involved in the family business as a teen. When he converted to Christianity (and changed his name to John Calvin) his family disowned him. He came to Canada, first to Ontario to study at a Bible college and then to Alberta.
Calvin will be deported by Canada because according to our laws he has known associations with terrorist organizations and is not eligible for refugee status. He has renounced his roots and family and he’s gay. He claims he will be killed if he’s returned to his birth lands. He is caught between the laws and customs of two different countries.
Do we as Canadian Presbyterians owe him anything? Should we care; and by caring, do we also take on the cause of the millions of international refugees who are caught in between other peoples’ ambitions and greed?
Small – minded gunmen walk into the offices of a satirical magazine in Paris and kill 10 journalists and two police. In the hours and days afterwards we are inundated with facile “likes” on social media, chest – and tub – thumping quotations about the sanctity of free press and then the news cycle moves on.
We are numbed. We are indignant. We are helpless in the face of all this. We assign blame to religions and to religious organizations. We demand governments do something; that somebody do something. We demand some sort of emotional closure. But we know there is no such thing. There isn’t. Our revenge fantasies, no matter how reasonably argued, will never mend, much less soothe, our broken psyches.
I do what I can in my own way. I donate to charities and offer prayers. I get involved in community efforts. I keep the faith. I maintain positive energy. I …
Or perhaps our empty indignation is a sign we have failed our own beliefs. We have reduced the majesty and mystery of our faith to petty ideologies of right and wrong, of good and bad.
I don’t have any answers. Just a lot of frustrated questions.
I find solace in the oddest of places: Over a meal with dear friends. With my wife and daughter, as they make silly jokes. Listening to music while making dinner. With a gang of friends at a pub. In worship—in the calm and community of hymn and prayer.
It doesn’t seem enough. But what more can I do?
