{"id":19333,"date":"2012-12-26T12:06:56","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T17:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=19333"},"modified":"2016-09-30T17:01:13","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T21:01:13","slug":"after-newtown-answering-the-question-of-why-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/12\/after-newtown-answering-the-question-of-why-god\/","title":{"rendered":"After Newtown: answering the question of “Why, God?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Maureen Dowd asked a priest friend to reflect on the tragedy in Newtown, and the result is a beautiful meditation on the mystery of faith:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember visiting a dear friend hours before her death and reminding her that death is not the end, that we believe in the Resurrection. I asked her, \u201cAre you there yet?\u201d She replied, \u201cI go back and forth.\u201d There was nothing I wanted more than to bring out a bag of proof and say, \u201cSee? You can be absolutely confident now.\u201d But there is no absolute bag of proof. I just stayed with her. A life of faith is often lived \u201cback and forth\u201d by believers and those who minister to them.<\/p>\n

Implicit here is the question of how we look to God to act and to enter our lives. For whatever reason, certainly foreign to most of us, God has chosen to enter the world today through others, through us. We have stories of miraculous interventions, lightning-bolt moments, but far more often the God of unconditional love comes to us in human form, just as God did over 2,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u2026 I really do believe that God enters the world through us. And even though I still have the \u201cWhy?\u201d questions, they are not so much \u201cWhy, God?\u201d questions. We are human and mortal. We will suffer and die. But how we are with one another in that suffering and dying makes all the difference as to whether God\u2019s presence is felt or not and whether we are comforted or not.<\/p>\n

One true thing is this: Faith is lived in family and community, and God is experienced in family and community. We need one another to be God\u2019s presence. When my younger brother, Brian, died suddenly at 44 years old, I was asking \u201cWhy?\u201d and I experienced family and friends as unconditional love in the flesh. They couldn\u2019t explain why he died. Even if they could, it wouldn\u2019t have brought him back. Yet the many ways that people reached out to me let me know that I was not alone. They really were the presence of God to me. They held me up to preach at Brian\u2019s funeral. They consoled me as I tried to comfort others. Suffering isolates us. Loving presence brings us back, makes us belong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read it all.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maureen Dowd asked a priest friend to reflect on the tragedy in Newtown, and the result is a beautiful meditation on the mystery of faith:\u00a0 I remember visiting a dear friend hours before her death and reminding her that death is not the end, that we believe in the Resurrection. I asked her, \u201cAre you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,23],"tags":[1348],"class_list":["post-19333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-links","category-inspiration","tag-newtown"],"yoast_head":"\nAfter Newtown: answering the question of "Why, God?"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Maureen Dowd asked a priest friend to reflect on the tragedy in Newtown, and the result is a beautiful meditation on the mystery of faith:\u00a0 I remember\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/12\/after-newtown-answering-the-question-of-why-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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