A couple nights ago I was getting ready to go to bed when a fly started to buzz around the bedroom. It was one of those stupid slow flies that bump into walls and the insides of lampshades. Nobody likes that. It was obvious that he (or she, I don’t care) was going to keep me annoyed and awake as I obsessed about its presence.
I grabbed a fly-swatter and an old t-shirt as I began my quest to vanquish the beast. I seem to have better luck with a shirt than a swatter with this type of fly that never seems to land. Whenever Dad saw me miss hitting a fly with the swatter he would say, “Don’t scare him to death.”
After a few minutes of patient waiting I knocked him (or her, again I don’t care) out of the air. I then finished the job with a generous amount of toilet paper (two-ply I think). I don’t like flies or mosquitoes, but I guess everything has a purpose, even that which I don’t understand.
One-hundred years ago today (April 15) more than 1,500 people died when the Titanic went to the bottom of the Atlantic. One-hundred years ago is a long time, and yet we are still fascinated by it. We know what happened and how, but we don’t know why.
Why would God allow such a thing to happen? On a cold November day in 1975 the Edmund Fitzgerald sank on Lake Superior taking 29 lives with it. Of that tragedy, Gordon Lightfoot wrote, “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”
As a man who believes in God and in God’s sovereignty, I try not to question His wisdom when bad things happen. But the closer the stab is to the heart, the more I wonder why.
It seems to me that when a father or a mother loses a child the agony would be unbearable and nightmarish. I have experienced the ache of losing my father and mother, whose passing was perhaps easier to expect and accept in the grand scheme of things because of their age. Still, I miss them.
Of the many strange and silly things I do, one is to put out a chair for Dad when I am barbequing. Whenever there was a fire burning Dad and I were drawn to it. When I was a kid and Dad had the grill going I would go out and watch him and the fire work together. In my head I can still hear the ing-ing-ing-ing-ing of the rotisserie motor.
When I became a father the responsibility of cooking meat in the outdoors fell to me. When Mom and Dad were over visiting he would join me outside. We would sit side- by-side on our chairs and talk about whether the coals were “ready,” the state of the country, old dogs, and the right time to flip the burgers.
He’s been gone for several years, but I still put out a chair for him. I pretend he’s sitting next to me, and I imagine what we would talk about. I would tell him about plans I’ve made and those I’ve changed. I think he would approve (which is still important to me).
Buddy the dog hangs around the grill waiting for a handout. I look at Buddy’s grey whiskers and wonder why God didn’t let dogs live longer. It seems a dog’s life span matches the time from when parents believe their child is old enough to take care of a puppy to when the child is old enough to live on their own. It’s a shame because an old dog knows everything there is to know about being a dog.
In dog years I am 7 ½ , and the things I don’t understand scare me to death. I don’t presume to know God’s will, so I will just have to trust and obey.
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