I don't know why

I really don't understand much of the world and why things happen.

Earthquakes ... plates adjusting deep under the surface. One source even said that these plates are always moving ... at about the same speed that our fingernails grow. This week: 7.0 in Haiti. Thousands have died and more will die in the days ahead.

Community. A few nights ago, three families sat around a table enjoyed a full meal, laughter, prayer, conversation, candles.

Violence. Last month a university professor was arrested for strangling his wife. He called 911. No previous history of domestic violence. She a gifted a photographer. They sang together in choir had many friends. No one knows what happens. One dies.

Beauty. The sun sets off Waikiki and hundreds stand along the beach hoping to capture that moment in their hearts and on their cameras.

Hate. An airplane crashes into the World Trade Tower, followed by a second, followed by a crash in a field in Pennsylvania. Thousands die.

Life. A couple discover they are expecting a baby. The long expected and desired child.

Death. A woman walking along a country road she walked daily is hit by a car and killed instantly.

The Unexpected. After a long cold winter, iris' bloom in the mountain village. Across the country a transplanted iris blooms in the spring then surprises its own with a second bloom in the fall.

I don't know why these things happen.

Yet I do know that God does love us.

God is eternal, infinite ...

I am simple, limited

I am a broken pot.

I don't know why

Yet I do know and believe in God.

No, Pat, God did not do this to Haiti

There is beauty before during and after the storm.

I don't know why and I can live with that

What I do know:

I have been called by name, I am God's

When I pass through the waters, I am not alone