Something Rather More Serious

We all know what happened at Newtown, an inconceivable month and a half ago. And what happened at Columbine, and about the others in between. Nickle Mines, Pennsylvania Amish settlement. Virginia Tech. Aurora, Colorado. We probably all know the names of those evil-doers in each case too, but I will not dignify their actions by naming them. When I looked up a timeline of "school shootings" since Columbine, I was astounded by the length of that list. The ones above were just the "big" ones. But every one of them resulted in a mother, a father, a family, missing a key member.

I have a friend, whose story is her own, whose child was stolen suddenly, violently, and permanently. I have other friends who lost children other ways. From this, I have learned that a common thing these parents hear is that "God must have needed another angel" or "another flower for His garden." And I think this phrase has begun to anger me almost as much as it must anger those being offered this "comfort." God is not some orchid thief who takes the rare flowers of lesser mortals to decorate his paradise. Those who choose to gain infamy by mass-murder/suicide are not harvesters for some hateful God. They are just hateful, evil, rabid animals. So, I've been writing. A poet friend woke my brain up, so I'll blame the bout of poecy on her.

Thoughts Regarding Those Who Profess God a Jealous Gardener

(or God Steals No Flowers for his Garden)

In this ravaged paradise,

newly greened shoots are too often trampled

or mown. But God, whose eye

is on the sparrow, knows where His

foot falls. He breaks no bruised reed.

And now, as if the Columbines had not been cut

soon enough in the flower of their youth,

the scythe of garden-variety rage

has cut a swath through a new town.

Those left in a desolate winter

are sure to hear tell of their tender buds

springing new in Elysium.

But the Reaper has been usurped,

his tool stolen by those

who have no right to sow salt.

Do not offer comfort to those left tending empty beds

by painting pictures of God's rare flora, new-sprung.

Though everything is said to have its season,

God does not cultivate His fields by spreading blight.

Those who raze our protected glades seek

not to fruit God's vinyard

but rather to wither vines of men.