No Weddings and Three Funerals

In one weekend, I attended the Southern Baptist funeral of 19-month-old Jaylen Robinson, who was beaten and smothered by his baby sitter; the Buddhist funeral of Wai Lwin, a national guard soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq; and a tear-filled public appeal for help by two little girls whose mother was shot dead by a jealous ex-con ex-boyfriend in a dentist's office last week.

That's a lot of random death.

Now, my thoughts on religion are fairly well documented. And as far as God is concerned, if my agnosticism met someone else’s atheism on the street, they might look at each other like Mary-Kate looks at Ashley: similar, confident and thin.

But I am sure that God has nothing to do with death dealt at random. Reason enough to wonder why He's necessary at all.

Randomness is religion enough for me. It's that illusion that there is some purpose behind 10 straight coin tosses coming up heads. That there is some celestial reason you were late to work downtown on 9/11. That your house survived the tsunami. Random chance dictated with cold calculation that your baby sitter was insane, that the IED exploded under your Humvee, that your mom's ex-boyfriend just couldn't move on.

But then everyone has their own thing.

The Baptist funeral was an upbeat, soul-singing, spirited affair. Something like a combination of a recruiting drive for Jesus mixed with "American Idol" on a night dedicated to the Rev. Al Green -- without all the white people. I was the only white face in a sea of 400 black mourners in Crown Heights, who stood and shouted and held their hands to the air. The pastor spoke with eloquence and passion that little Jaylen, who died when his mouth was covered with duct tape and his feet stabbed with scissors, is in a better place now with Jesus.

I have no idea where Jaylen is now -- certainly not in the tiny white and gold casket buried in Linden, N.J. And I understand why people are comforted with the fairy tale of a heaven where, as the pastor claimed, Jesus is now cradling Jaylen, caressing him and giving him all the love he'll ever need.

But none of this stopped anyone from crying. The parents looked a lot like zombies. Despite all protestations from the clergy that this was all part of God's inscrutable plan, tears and pain ruled the day.

Buddhists, like Wai Lwin's family and friends, are so accepting of death that in Thailand, I never met someone who didn't smile when they were speaking of it. Even a pregnant woman whose husband was hit by a truck smiled through the entire exchange. But Lwin's parents looked like they needed help just walking to the limousine. Perhaps it's that intrusive Western influence.

So? So, a God who lets bad things happen to good people is a God not worth worshipping. And saying that we humans aren't worthy to fathom his purposes is not just a cop-out, it's a con: There's an all-knowing, all-seeing, benevolent Lord over all humanity whose purposes can't be discerned; give him your love -- don't ask questions that anticipate answers.

I'd rather toss a coin and shrug than give my life over to that dude.