Note: Sometimes life just isn’t funny.

This isn’t a political blog, nor is it a “What’s new in the news?” blog.  It’s a blog about life, and about my struggle to live what Paul called, “A life worthy of the calling you have received.” Still, sometimes things happen in this world that not only need to be addressed, but that directly impact my quest.  So we talk about them.

How do you explain tragedy to a child?

How do you explain evil?

How do you explain betrayal?

Recently our community has been rocked by tragedy and evil and betrayal.  A man who was supposed to be a hero became a monster.  He took lives that he had sworn to protect and led law enforcement on a manhunt that covered half the state before coming to a brutal conclusion here in our local mountains.

A rough week for a pretty quiet area.

Back to my question: how do you explain all this to a child?  I’m not talking about little children—if mine were elementary age, I would do my best to protect them from the whole thing.  But my twins are fourteen, and old enough to grapple with this.  Innocent people dead.  Heroes turning evil. Monsters.

Some parts are simpler to explain than others.  Michael Crain and Jeremiah MacKay are officers who were killed “in the line of duty.”  That’s a simple phrase for an enormous idea.  Crain and MacKay saw it as their duty, their purpose, to place themselves squarely between my family and the darkness.  We honor the men as heroes, and remember the words of Christ, “Greater love has no man than this, that he should lay down his life for his friend.”  I can teach my children that these brave men showed great love every day of their careers by being willing to lay down their lives.  I can train my children to honor all law enforcement officers, who daily risk everything to defend us.

But what do I say of the betrayer, the monster who forsook his oath and made war against the innocent?  Do I tell my kids that he was crazy?  Perhaps he was, but insanity connotes a lack of responsibility for one’s actions.  I don’t think so.

How about explaining that he felt wronged by the LAPD, and so considered himself in a war of retribution?  Again, that smacks of crazy, and crazy is just so frighteningly random.

Or do I say he was just evil?

If so, when did he become evil?  Was he always a monster?

Complicated.

Frankly, to those of you without Christ, I don’t have the first answer.  Without God in your worldview, there really isn’t evil, per se.  The world is a random place.  The philosophy of a Godless world can be summed up on a bumper sticker:

Things happen.

I am convinced it is otherwise.

I am convinced that there is a God, and that he has programmed a clear sense of right and wrong into our very souls.

I am convinced that this same God, desiring to be loved by free creatures without compulsion, granted us the ability to choose.

I am convinced that we chose against God.  By the way, you can’t blame this on Adam.  I would have made the same choice—I do every day.

I am convinced that Adam’s choice—my choice—broke the world.  Evil arose, not because God created it or because he was powerless to stop it, but as the natural consequence of the choice to walk away from God.  That evil infects us and our world, with sickness, and death, and insanity, and sin.

I am convinced that God began to heal the world by sending Jesus, his son, to pay the price for our disobedience.  His healing will be complete when Jesus returns to remove evil once and for all.

Until that day it is our duty to fight evil by embracing God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.

This is what I will teach my children.

This is what I will struggle to live in my own life.

If you think I am wrong, let me know.  I welcome the conversation.

This wasn’t meant to be a summary of my theology.  But when I try to comprehend a nightmare such as we have recently faced, these are the principles I return to.  God is intimately connected to everything I experience.

When I rejoice that the monster is ended, I give thanks to God.

When I mourn the loss of the innocents, I cry out to God.

When I consider the heroes, I praise God.

Always, only God.

I’m learning.