Kaleo San Diego Church

The clowns entertained the children with silly antics and hopeful stories of happy endings and colorful baubles.  The music blared hip hop while youths and the "not so youths" collapsed in a heap on the mat spinning, popping, and breaking.  There was as much food as you could care to take in and just as much fizzy pop to wash it down with.  There were celebrities stained with polish as their brightly shining faces lit up the glass, and there were saddle shoed politicians singing praises with their sunny lyrics.  Josh Becket had just thrown the first pitch in the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies as excited fans hurried to find a seat. But this is not the queue outside Fenway Park, brimming with anticipation of the culmination of "America's Pastime"; no, the World Series was on the 60 inch plasma big screen housed in news trucks within San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, and the entertainment was in response to the 2007 Southern California Firestorm.  

The disjunctive was jarring.  The chasm between the distraction and feeling of excitement within the stadium and the reality and foreboding of losing a neighborhood, losing a home, and in a few cases losing a loved one, from a firestorm that as of last count burned over 600 square miles with over 1600 structures, homes and businesses lost.  Amid the cacophony of the party, is there a thought of "Why?"  Is there even time to contemplate the why?  I suspect when the clowns remove their makeup, the music has been silenced, the dance has ceased, the balloons have been grounded, and the celebrities, politicians, and news hounds find the next calamity to cover, those who lost the most, will have time, and ask "Why?" But will they?  "Why?" is not a question to be asked in the maelstrom of meaninglessness.

There is no disdain coming from this writer's hands as I witnessed the scene that unfolded at "The Q" in the wake of the fires.  Please don't mistake my intention.  In fact I am not surprised that as I traversed the hallways looking for someone that needs counsel, someone that needs help and, yes, someone that is angry with God, I could find nothing but noise.  There was a religious counseling area, shuffled off to the side with a small sign signifying its insignificance.  As I managed to find a seat near the sign I found out that there is no longer a "religious counseling" area but now an information area in its stead, managed by a nice gentleman who happens to be a Universalist.  The sign was about to be removed but I requested that it stay and be placed over my head.   

Love and care were indeed being shown by the volunteers.  Physical needs were met, financial needs were being met, but who has time to think about the emotional let alone the spiritual when we are living out the implications of  a naturalist worldview, "Eat, Drink and be Merry, the fire spared us today but soon we shall die."  No, there is no disdain, just sadness, coupled with a desire to find a podium, light the dais, switch the microphone and yell, "Wake Up O' Sleepers!!  What has to be done to get our attention?  Who gives a rip about sin and its offense when I'm fed, warm, and entertained?  Has love therefore been exhausted?

Do you feel the story is incomplete?  That's the point.