BOSTON: BOMBS AND BELLS

After the events of yesterday, the haunting words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow emerged from the shadows of my thoughts.  Longfellow had settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the greater Boston area, not far from the scene of the Marathon carnage. The Civil War was still raging, and the poet had received word that his son, serving in the Union Army, was gravely wounded.  His mind was plagued by the horror of explosions, shrapnel, smoke, screams and death—even as Americans faced yesterday.  Those morbid musings were invaded by the peals of church bells ringing for Christmas.  It was a time to celebrate, but it felt more like a time to cry.  How quickly the tide can turn!  You may have runners crossing a finish line to cheers and then a flash—fire and fury—and chaos reigns.  Families frantically search for missing loved ones, victims see missing limbs, and even one so young as eight will be missing from the table for the rest of his parents’ days as a casket and funeral will mark a young bud killed by an unexpected frost.

Where is God in this? 

Longfellow wondered the same thing.  Though the season is different, the lyrics penned in such close proximity to that Boston brutality ring just as clear.

“Christmas Bells”

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,

and mild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Indeed, God is alive and at work despite what we see about us, and in the end death will be swallowed up by life.