Are you ready take the third step of my Guided Meditation?  If you are, find a quiet place, take a deep breath and be quiet for a moment. Then, take to heart the following meditation:

There is stuff in the Bible that I hate. I hate that in the Hebrew Bible a prophet gets mad at some kids who are teasing him and calls on God to send 42 she-bears out of the woods to rip those kids to shreds. I also detest the story that has become known as the “Slaughter of the Innocents.” It should not be in the Bible. God would never condone King Herod slaughtering all the kids in Israel under the age of two, simply to fulfill an obscure prophecy from the Old Testament. It was definitely not God’s idea that the birth of Jesus was to be followed by a holocaust. I also absolutely hate the idea of “mothers inconsolably weeping for their children” back then, just as it breaks my heart to hear of a mother weeping for her child today. The saddest thing in these troubled times is that far too many parents are weeping for their kids.

I will never attempt to preach a full-blown sermon on the “Slaughter of the Innocents,” just as I find it very difficult to preach about the horror of holocausts and terrorist attacks. I have only this to say about such things: “The God that I think I know is not responsible for such tragedies, but rather, as Dr. Werner Lemke once said, ‘God is in heaven weeping over them.” It is always OK to weep and cry. Big boys need to cry. Big girls need to cry. Weeping does not kill our pain, but it does give us a means by which to express it.

In this post, I will let the story of the “Slaughter of the Innocents” stand without comment or explanation. There are no words to make sense of it anyway, but as our lives go on and on, please do not refrain from shedding tears. It is OK to weep for mothers and fathers who have lost their children at the hand of those who do not represent God, but who do embody pure evil. It is also OK to give ourselves and those we love permission to cry. To hold in pain only increases its intensity. To allow our tears to flow is one means by which we can let go of our pain…a little…and let God’s love tend to us…a little.

As you read this, some of you may need to shed a tear. Go ahead! It is good for the soul. The rest of us might want to shed a tear or two for those who, on this day, are weeping for themselves or for someone they love.

May the Divine One grant us all peace.

John E. Holt, Cotuit, MA