On murder
2007-10-15“[M]urder is an act of infinite cruelty, even if the perpetrators sometimes look like playboys or college professors or nice motherly women with softly graying hair.”—Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder
So, this morning, my brother tells me that the daughter of one of his elders was murdered. She was in her mid-twenties. He didn’t even know her, and he’s in shock. I work with others from this church, and I know that my brother is not alone in feeling stunned and horrified.
I’ve never met this woman, but she was a sister. So I’m praying for this family, that God will extend His comfort to them. And I’m also praying that God will nail the bastard that killed her to the wall. And you know, I debated about whether I wanted to leave that sentence that way. But any other way of writing it would have been too clean, too soft, too sanitized. That’s my current sentiment, and so it stays.
There’s something horrifying about murder. It’s bad enough that people die. It’s bad enough that people die in war. But when someone is killed in cold blood, it’s like the ultimate perversion of everything that God made this world to be.
Lord God, the blood of your servant has stained the ground. Let Your vengeance be swift.
Amen.