Grief

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday November 2, 2005

It is Monday afternoon and I am trying to write, with the knowledge that a young woman and her two children have been murdered just up the road. The Vice Principal at the school called and asked for clergypersons, including me, to come and help calm the children at school as one of the victims of the homicide was student in the fourth grade. The prime person of interest is still at large as I write, or attempt to write.

The family was what we have come to call, 'blended' meaning that due to some other terrible things, the original relationship did not work out. The prime suspect is the current husband of the young woman found murdered with her two children. Of course he may not be the culprit. I hope not.

The police have locked down the schools in the immediate area for safety reasons and to give the kids a sense of security. The pastors and counselors will further add to a sense of security. Park County, one of the famous covered bridge counties, has had more than its share of gruesome murders, I suppose the most infamous being what has became known as the Hollandsburg murders of 28 years ago on Valentines Day, 1977.

The family was broken and not blended very well, with the girls living in different homes and visiting with their Mother and Stepfather over the weekend. Only God knows the pain faced by this mother and little girls of 10 and 12 years of age.

I wonder; what kind of sick mind would direct the murder of two little girls? What could they have done besides simply being there at the moment of insane rage over something, only the Lord knows what, set a human off into a beastly/demonic rage?

We are told in the Bible that the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, but do we really accept this description as valid? Most of the time, no, we do not. But then acts such as this unspeakable crime are committed and we are faced with the reality, that lurking just below the surface, hiding under a thin varnish is the monster that ruled in the heart of Cain noted as the first murderer, a monster coiled and waiting for the opportunity to leap out of our soul and into terrifying action that brings innocent life to a horrible end.

As our community waits on further news, of arrests, of trials, we all do so with a slow agony in our souls as we come to accept that this terrible act of rebellion against the sanctity of life, could have played on the stage of our little niche in the world. Things like this do not happen here.

When all of the soul searching is over, when the police are finished, we will all come to grips with the stunning truth, that this monstrous act was not predictable, else we would have done something, anything to prevent it, wouldn't we?

In the days ahead, we will huddle around each other, some of us will pray, others will opine about how the perpetrator of this heinous deed should be tortured as a lesson to others, and many will cope by distancing from the stark reality that out of nowhere, on Halloween, 2005 we were hit with a cold, yet burning slap in the face, forcing us to recognize that human hearts still need more work, a divine work of grace.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2005 Use with credit.

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