I have not read the full report…only seen the headlines. Frankly, I suppose at this rate it is fitting that I would choose to come back from a self imposed month long social media blackout today, and more relevant that I would come back with the question that came to me in the wee hours of this morning before whoever decided to start shooting on yet another college campus…

Does God still work?

I don’t pose this question to be provocative, or to call into question anyone’s personally held beliefs. Nor do I pose the question as a rallying cry to Atheists or Theists to offer the “right” answer. You see, I am studying for my Masters of Divinity degree and today, I have my Intro to Theology class and tomorrow, I have my Intro to Old Testament. Ironically, in both classes, we are at a point where we are discussing/questioning the many names for “God/god.”  I will hear plenty about God in the next 48 hours.

So, I will spare you technical analysis, exegesis or deep theological reflection or sources and footnotes. For the record, I can handily jab a parry with some pretty hefty brained people at this point and there is a place for that. This isn’t it. My question comes from the gut wrenching feeling that we have to question whether we (the human race) have actually got it all wrong at this point. I am overwhelmed by a feeling of sitting in a school that is not unlike the many places where it suddenly feels very unsafe to be. I am surrounded by people who are invested in the greater good and understanding of human life as a spiritual journey, yet I have the overwhelming feeling that it is simply a bunch of crap. Hundreds of thousands of hours, millions of dollars, lifetimes, spent trying to explain, justify, affirm, deny life in relationship to one word: God.

…and a shooter can walk around a school and kill innocent students. A tsunami can kill hundreds of thousands of people. Governments attempt to exterminate people who disagree. World leaders are assassinated. Cancer still spreads. Death comes to the young…

And it has always been this way.

…and a child is born, the sun still rises, illness is overcome, prophetic words inspire, art is created from nothingness, people are fed…people are freed. There is love.

And it has always been this way as well.

We no longer live in a time of intimate communication. When I went to get a coffee this morning, I watched an entire line of people with their heads dangling into electronic devices, bumping into each other, unresponsive to the barista’s cheerful “good morning!” unengaged with each other. Many would make the excuse that in a coffee shop in the morning, people are still not awake. Frankly, that’s bullshit. This zombie parade is a product of the smart phone…which has made dumb people…and the commercially driven technical age. Even sleepy people can say good morning to one another…if they aren’t texting, tweeting and obsessing about things that aren’t actually present. Eye contact is dead. The simple return of the question “…and how are you?” is met with surprise, because it has fallen out of vogue. There is too much emphasis put on what’s next?, what am I missing?, aspiration and acquisition combined with self reliance and independent spirit. An entire culture of Generals…and no one willing to actually be a soldier…no, no one willing to be daisies in the gun barrel, or better yet, a daisy among the field. Everyone is starring in their own personal reality show. In an age when we are surrounded by bright shiny things, science as the rule and capitalism as the goal, is seems in so many ways that God has been totally left behind.

Yet, we are still alive, we are still human, we still question our existence, we still search for meaning in the way time and experience unfold, we still yearn for hope and comfort…and contact.

And it has always been this way as well.

Leaving the coffee shop, I saw a friend who spends a lot of time in the street. As such, he is often outside of places where I simply breeze in and out. He asked me how I was and I replied that I was fine. I returned the question and he answered that he had a bit of a cold and a stuffy nose as a result. He asked if I could get him some tissue from inside the coffee shop. I did so without hesitation. Simple for me, not so simple for him, but if my head had been buried in text messages, or my ears plugged with my music…I would never have heard his soft voice with the simplest fillable of human needs.

…we are still alive, we are still human…we still yearn for hope and comfort and contact.

I don’t know if God still works. But I do know that everything that compelled us to speak the name of God, or not speak the name…whatever it is that caused us to deny that there is a God or to see god in our human experience of nature…whatever brings us to church or the mosque or temple…what keeps us at home watching football instead….what makes us genuflect, wear religious garments, respect symbols of faith…and even what makes us believe that the only thing is here and now…all of that does still work.

And it always will.