The Streets Aren't Safe

“God lives here.  The streets are safe.”  So says The Message’s version of Psalm 46.

But they aren’t.

The streets aren’t safe.

So how can we proclaim that they are?

It’s an either/or proposition, right?

Right?

I’m not so sure.

We need new words for the both-andedness of life.

Words like unsafesafe or safeunsafe or the unness of safeness.

Words to grab hold of reality: that things are safe and unsafe all at once – unsafe for these human bodies, which are so very vulnerable to all sorts of trouble, misfortune and tragedy . . . safe for the true state of things, which never depends on what happens to this body – but does.

Words that recognize that what happens to our bodies matters and that the love that happens in all the small moments of life is as big and bigger than the walls falling down around.

Both are true.  Both are real.

Tragedy happens.

Love happens too.

Even, and perhaps especially, amidst the tragedy.

For God is there.

And wherever God is, there is love.

Caring, regretting, sorrowing, rejoicing, love.

Where was God on the Friday no one would dare call Good?

Right there – taking the bullet too . . . holding the wee tiny hands . . . weeping . . . wrestling . . . screaming.

Why doesn’t God protect us from our worst selves?

I wish I knew.