Lament

It starts with the sound of sirens. You wait for them to pass your street, but they don't. At first you think they are there for the neighbor on the corner. She's older, maybe she fell. Then the emergency responders walk into your neighbors' house.

Their wedding date is in less than three weeks.

Everything will be okay.

You gather in clusters with the neighbors, watching, waiting. It's misting a light rain, but almost everyone is standing outside in stocking feet. The fire and rescue truck leaves. The ambulance leaves.

Everything will be okay.

The kids start tossing frisbees back and forth across the street. The police car doesn't leave.

They probably have to do paperwork. She probably just refused to go in the ambulance.

Everything will be okay.

The police car still doesn't leave. It doesn't leave. The neighborhood starts slipping back behind closed doors. You call the children in.

Everything will be okay, won't it?

Another police car arrives. You're still hoping paperwork.

Everything has to be okay.

From your window, you see the first family begin to arrive. You hear the sobs and you know. You know.

Everything is not okay.

The world turns and crumbles so quickly.

Las Vegas.
Puerto Rico.
Here. Now.

A million large griefs collide with the intimate griefs that play out on streets and in homes around the world.

Everything is not okay.

The Church is supposed to have the answers. A better life, joy to come, peace in the midst of pain. I have to admit, there are days when that all rings hollow. Oh, I stopped believing a long time ago in a God that causes pain. But I still don't know what to do with a God who allows it.

Everything is not okay.

There is a God who could choose to end this. Kingdom come, his will be done. Why wait, when everything is not okay?

I don't have answers. I have nothing but tears. Somehow, somewhere, shalom has to break in.

Maybe it starts when we stop waiting for the eternal fix, stop living as if this world is just a blink and then we all fly away. Maybe we read the prophets and the laments, we open our eyes and we admit:

Everything is not okay.

Maybe I just don't know what I'm saying. Maybe I'm grief-struck, maybe a heretic. But I'm tired, and God knows,

Everything is not okay.