In this week of the Boston Marathon bombing, a tragic fertilizer plant accident in Texas, wars still staining our planet, floods in the Midwest, a poignant vote on gun safety, friends struggling with cancer, this little bird brings a song to my mind -- "his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me."
I often wonder, during these crises, about the parents of the bad guys. What must it be like when the world cheers the death of a sparrow-child whom you brought into the world, what ache goes down in the heart of those who saw some good in the lives of the ones who do bad things.
Then, what questions rise in the hearts of those whose children have been harmed. Why did someone think of such evil and why did that evil strike out at a loved one.
Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, we know that. But in this complex condition that we call human, the songwriter's claim that God's eye is on the least and the tiniest causes me to think of the hurts, not in an eye for eye way, but in a way that encompasses life for all, those who suffer the hurts, those who inflict the hurts, and, yes, the sparrows of our world.
Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler
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