in god's eyes In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He created the oceans and the land. He created life. And now He’s gone.Daniel Lutz Throughout the Bible, we read accounts of people experiencing miracles. Angels appearing before cowering peasants, the exodus, the immaculate conception. God’s hand shaped much of history, at least according to the Bible. All these miracles, and now nothing. Our world hasn’t seen a miracle in a long, long time. Then again, miracles could be occurring all around us, and we’d never acknowledge them. In our world, the unexplainable or unattainable is exploited then abandoned. All those “crazy” people walking down the sidewalk talking to themselves could very well be talking to an angel that only they can see. Or they could just be crazy. I know you were a devout Christian, and I was raised to be the same. So, what went wrong? Before you ever got sick, these thoughts had already been coming to me, mostly late at night, the darkness giving way to a vision of a world devoid of faith. This is my first trip to your stone since you were buried. I hope you don’tmind, I just couldn’t take it that soon. To be honest, I think the restof the family’s been trying to keep me away from here anyway, after mybreakdown after your funeral. After two months, I was pretty sure that it wouldbe easier now, and I couldn’t pretend like today wasn’t your birthday.But now, standing here, I know I shouldn’t have come. I know you’re ashamed of me now. Standing here, before your brand-new grave,the grass not even beginning to grow over the plot yet, and all I can think aboutis myself. Why am I acting like this? Why did this happen to me? You raised mebetter than this, and yet these thoughts come just the same. I want to be young again, maybe four years old, sitting in your lap reading thatbook, “God Made”, basically an illustrated list of all the thingsGod created in this world for us. I want that security again. I want to knowif I fall down and skin my knee that you’ll be there to wash it off andlet me cry the pain away. I want to come home from school in the winter to findthat you had made me hot chocolate. I want to be able to be completely envelopedby your long arms, squeezing tightly to make me laugh. I don’t want toremember your arms the way I do now, reaching out for me from that pathetic cotwe set up for you downstairs because you were too weak to climb to the secondstory of the house. I don’t want to remember the skin on your arms saggingoff the sides like the sleeves of a too-large sweater. I set down the flowers that I’ve brought. I struggled to come up with somethingmore interesting than flowers, but couldn’t. I hope you like them, whereveryou are. That day, the priest told us that you’re in a better place now-thatthis was part of God’s plan and we shouldn’t question it. Well, I’msorry, but I’ve done nothing but question it since it happened. God, whydid you do this to me? God, why did you have to take my mother away when shewas only forty-seven years old? God, why did she have to go like that? God, didyou make her bleed out of her nose for hours until she passed out? God, why didyou do that? I don’t want to be one of those people. One of those people who use Godas their lightning rod: pinning every bad thing that happens to them on Him.But I’ll be damned if I’m going to blindly accept that this was God’swill. Why? Please tell me. I remember when the priest gave you your last rites. I left the room, but stoodin the doorway, watching your shaking hand struggling to hold onto those rosarybeads. A single tear ran down your cheek as you closed your eyes for the lasttime. Maybe it was a tear of joy; you saw the white light and the pearly gatesand knew you’d made it. That had to be it. It had to be. I glance toward the sky, but I quickly realize that there’s an old manabout twenty yards away at another stone, and I become self-conscious and bringmy head back down. I’m such a horrible son. I take one last look at yourstone, shiny and brand-new, sided by two crumbling monuments. Yours will looklike that eventually. So will mine. So will every person I have ever and willever meet or even see. The only true binding thing among all forms of life isthat we will all end up like this. I whisper a few words that I hope you canhear, that I hope mean something to you, and walk back to my car. I’m suddenlyvery cold. I get in the car and drive off, slowly, stones stretching out as far as I cansee on either side of me. I look at some of the names: Donner, DeFrancesco, Szereski.I have never known any of these people, and yet right now, just seeing theirnames, their dates, is so depressing, I have to turn up the radio to try anddrown out my thoughts. I drive out of my way so that I don’t pass the children’ssection. A thought: if God didn’t exist, there would be no reason for us to keepgoing. Every person eventually reaches that age of wonder, when you start thinkingabout the world through the eyes of God and always ask yourself that same questionthat you know you can’t answer: why are we here? What’s the pointof it all? Maybe there is no purpose; maybe it’s all just chaos. But that doesn’tmake sense. Maybe the answer is right here on earth. Maybe the point of lifeis life itself. So many devout Christians spend their lives looking upward, waitingfor their deaths so they can rise up. Meanwhile, they never look forward andsee the beauty in life, in this world. I have no clue if there is a heaven andhell. What I do know is that there is a world right here that I haven’teven come close to experiencing fully. Somehow, these thoughts comfort me. I drive down a busy road, cars everywhere,pedestrians all over the sidewalk. And suddenly it’s all going to be okay.Obviously, the sorrow is still there, in my heart, in that place in my gut wherethe really horrible feelings dwell. But, suddenly, you’re here, too. Watchingme, smiling, urging me to live my life to its fullest. And as I smile at a littlegirl, maybe six years old, to my left, in the passenger seat of a station wagon,her mother driving, I can’t imagine a greater place than the one we arein right now. Bad things happen constantly, but these are just reminders of howgreat the good things really are. Would I have ever thought to thank my motherfor everything she had done for me in my life if I didn’t know somewheredeep in my heart that there would more than likely come a time when she wasn’tthere anymore? Would life mean anything without death? We die so that othersmay truly live. Is there a God? I don’t know. But, I have a feeling there’s somethingbigger at work here. The world wouldn’t be this normal, this good, if chaoswas its only driving force. One thing I do know is that I, we, need God morethan we will ever realize. Wonder is the true driving force of humanity, andif we were to know for certain every question we had about God, we would haveno need to keep going. The meaning of life is to live. The six-year-old is still looking at me. I wave and she waves back. Her motherglances at me, then says something to her. The girl looks away. You used to yellat me for waving at people in traffic, mom, remember? I know you do. The stoplightturns green and I roll forward, ready for the world, ready for anything. Readyfor everything. |