To Save a Mockingbird

I cried tears of sorrow yesterday evening when the little bird died painfully in spite of everything I could do. It was a terrible death of dehydration and starvation, after baking for hours in the hot South Texas sun.

When I went to see what my dogs were barking at by the side of the house, I found a half-grown bird (a male mockingbird, I think, though I'm no expert) with one toe-nail caught in the window screen, hanging upside down, and nearly dead. His pitiful, dehydrated condition told me he had been there for a long time and undoubtedly suffered through most of the hot summer afternoon.

I carefully disengaged him from the screen and released him. He flew a few feet, but didn't have the strength to keep going; so I picked him up and took him inside.

With a dropper bought another time for a similar purpose, I carefully fed him drops of water with a little sugar dissolved in it. His tongue would not move at first, and appeared to be completely dried out. But the water seemed to revive both the tongue and the rest of the bird a little.

We cleaned his mud-encrusted face as well as we could with a wet paper towel, being very careful not to injure him in the process. We tried to feed him little bits of light bread soaked in the water, but he seemed incapable of swallowing them. We did all we knew how to do for this little helpless creature. It was not enough.

Finally, realizing he would need some quiet time to make use of the water now in his stomach, we put him in a cardboard box lined with newspaper and left him alone for awhile. When he had had some time to rest and recuperate a little (we hoped), we repeated the procedure. He seemed definitely stronger, but still wouldn't swallow the pieces of wet bread.

I set the alarm for a couple of hours later, and we went to bed. When the alarm went off, I went back to see what else I could do for him; but he was dead.

Actually, it may be that his death was one of the more merciful things that had happened to him that day.

I wondered. Where was God when His little creature needed more help than I could provide?

Could he have been the same place He was when eleven-year-old Heidi S. was kidnapped, raped repeatedly, strangled to death, and dumped in a field to rot?

Could He have been wherever he was when the beautiful and wonderful 32-year-old Gini P., so loved by her fellow educators and students, died a slow, horrible death from cancer of the uterus?

Could He have been wherever he was when the beautiful, vivacious singer Selena, a fantastic role model for thousands of Hispanic girls, was blown away by an angry woman with a gun, before most of us even had the pleasure of knowing her?

Could He have been wherever He was when my 20-year-old niece had her fatal car wreck on her way home from work in a rain-storm? Or when the aneurysm burst in the brain of my innocent four-day-old cousin?

Maybe He was wherever He was when the cancer began to grow in Betty's breast. Or wherever He was a couple of years later when the cancer began growing in Jimmie's breast. Or wherever He was last week (as this was originally written) when Jimmie finally died, after a year and a half of torture by surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

Where was he a few years ago when the hurricane blew Jimmie's son and granddaughter and a friend off the highway and over a seawall to drown in the Gulf of Mexico?

Where was He when the bus full of Sunday School students ran off a bridge and most of them drowned.

Or when young Paul M. got sick and died in less than a week! Less than seven days! Leaving his Christian wife and parents to grieve over him. Or when the cancer began eating Monroe M.'s pancreas. Or when the young Christian, off-duty policeman was robbed of a few dollars and shot to death at an automatic teller machine, leaving a grieving wife and children.

Where was their God? Where was He? I need to know!

Where is He now, while my own nerves slowly degenerate from an unknown cause. Unknown to my doctors and myself, that is; but presumably not unknown to God.

Where is He when I need Him?

If it were possible, I would have saved every one of these people, as well as that helpless little bird. Wouldn't you?

Are you so heartless and unfeeling that you would stand by and watch this terrible suffering of both man and beast and do nothing? Do you really believe the god you worship is that cruel? And you worship him anyway? Why? Really, how could you worship such a monster? It boggles the brain!!!

Why did God not help His creatures? Was He too busy? Was he too far away? Was He too preoccupied to notice?

I can already hear somebody say that "God didn't cause any of those things, so don't blame Him." OK, I never said He did. But He didn't stop them, either. How could any compassionate being (God, human, or whatever) let these things happen, if he had power to prevent them? Isn't God supposed to be kind and loving, so intent on his earthly creation that he even knows how many hairs are in our heads, and notices every time a sparrow falls from the sky? What good is His noticing if He does nothing about it?

Somebody else is saying, "God set the laws of nature into motion, and now He lets them work as intended. Yes, He intervenes sometimes to heal the sick and to do other things, but only when it meets His purpose. We can't question Him when something like this happens, because it's up to Him to decide what to do and work His plan." OK, but don't try to tell me that shows any kind of love or compassion. It doesn't.

If I stand by and do nothing while a child gets run over by a truck because I'm late for work and don't have time to help, what would you think of me? Would you think it was OK because I "didn't make it happen?" No! If I could possibly prevent it, it would NOT be OK that I let it happen!

No sane person could possibly think I deserved any love or respect from anybody if I let such a thing happen without trying with all my being to prevent it. And they would be right! Love doesn't work that way! Kindness doesn't work that way! Goodness doesn't work that way!

Neither could an all-powerful, all-wise, loving God stand by and watch such terrible things happen. If He is powerful enough to prevent them, and wise enough to know how, then love would compel Him to intervene when His creatures need help.

I'm not just somewhat skeptical of that kind of god. I'm EXTREMELY skeptical of Him (Or Her. Or It. Or Whatever.) And I see no reason to think there is any other kind of god, either.

This page was last updated 08/21/09 04:43 PM.

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