There are a few things that disturb me so profoundly that, when I'm forced to think about them, I can almost hear myself calling upon God in some silent way to ask, WTF? I tell God to do a better job, for Chrissakes, knowing full well that God probably isn't listening because God is likely too caught up in Facebook at the moment. Thus, I force myself to think of something else, as I try to navigate my way through the horror on my own, by my-damn-self.
See, any true story about the rape of a child, any true story about genital mutilation, and any true story about a beheading, causes me to feel so emotionally, spiritually, and physically assaulted, that all the cells in my body seem to pinch themselves shut simultaneously, causing me to fall into something I can't fully describe. Maybe it's my own humanity that gets kicked in the gut at these moments, the core of goodness most of us have but don't generally tap into too deeply. I don't know. All I know is that, even with so many disturbing truths in our world, these are the three that, every time they come up in the news, kill something in me.
So, why am I bringing this up? Well, at lunch yesterday, my brother recounted the story of Tim McClean, a twenty-two-year-old kid who was traveling in Toronto, Canada, taking a Greyhound bus from Edmonton to Winnipeg. Apparently, as Tim McClean napped, an unprovoked, unidentified insane man pulled out a knife and methodically began to stab him as he screamed in agony. Then, with the same knife that he had been doing the stabbing with, he cut off Tim McClean's head. I can barely type this, I swear to God. If you aren't familiar with the whole story, here: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=7886faf4-e8e9-4217-ac1d-66563d16ec9f.
I can't imagine. I really can't.
My God, that poor kid.
See, any true story about the rape of a child, any true story about genital mutilation, and any true story about a beheading, causes me to feel so emotionally, spiritually, and physically assaulted, that all the cells in my body seem to pinch themselves shut simultaneously, causing me to fall into something I can't fully describe. Maybe it's my own humanity that gets kicked in the gut at these moments, the core of goodness most of us have but don't generally tap into too deeply. I don't know. All I know is that, even with so many disturbing truths in our world, these are the three that, every time they come up in the news, kill something in me.
So, why am I bringing this up? Well, at lunch yesterday, my brother recounted the story of Tim McClean, a twenty-two-year-old kid who was traveling in Toronto, Canada, taking a Greyhound bus from Edmonton to Winnipeg. Apparently, as Tim McClean napped, an unprovoked, unidentified insane man pulled out a knife and methodically began to stab him as he screamed in agony. Then, with the same knife that he had been doing the stabbing with, he cut off Tim McClean's head. I can barely type this, I swear to God. If you aren't familiar with the whole story, here: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=7886faf4-e8e9-4217-ac1d-66563d16ec9f.
I can't imagine. I really can't.
My God, that poor kid.
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