Our Angels Are Outgunned

This morning, I said on Facebook:

“I went to bed knowing about the attack in Las Vegas, but not knowing how bad it was. I went to bed with thoughts and prayers. I woke up and it’s at least 50 dead and over 400 hurt. Maybe thoughts and prayers aren’t enough.”

The first response came quickly: “Or, maybe thoughts and prayers kept the toll from being higher.”

I get that. I don’t write this to criticize the person who left that comment (and please, nobody else should give him a hard time, either). I understand that sentiment, and to some extent I share it, which is why I still pray at all.

In a situation like what happened in Vegas, for many people “thoughts and prayers” is all they can offer. When you’re far away, you can donate blood if you’re allowed, you can donate money if you’ve got it, you can call or write to your people in Congress…but then you’re usually stuck with nothing. You have to go back to your life. One hopes those affected will understand the sentiment of “thoughts and prayers” and feel they aren’t alone. One may also hope that maybe, through faith and divine intervention or whatever, those thoughts and prayers will have some actual positive effect on the outcome.

The problem is we hear “thoughts and prayers” from people who can do more. Much more. We hear this from legislators and people in high office and leaders in business and more. But thoughts and prayers and pithy, hollow comments are all they offer.

It’s fine to hope your thoughts or prayers matter. It is absolutely irresponsible to ACT—or choose not to act—on the presumption that thoughts and prayers will do any good. You can hope it will do some good. If you EXPECT it will do any good, you’re not helping anyone.

We might also consider that it might not be about thoughts or prayers at all. If God is waiting on us to hit some extra stretch goal to turn this around, we aren’t his children. We’re hostages. So maybe, assuming God isn’t just a colossal jerk in the sky, it’s not about that?

This is something I think about a lot. I write books with guardian angels as characters. I started out just wanting to write happy, fun stories about lonely people finding love and constantly having explicit smutty sex, but I wanted the characters to feel like real people. Given that one of those characters is a guardian angel, I had to work out her whole deal. My smutty-fun books got real existential real fast. After three books and assorted other stories over seven years of working at this, I have to tell you something:

Once you posit that guardian angels are real, nothing makes any god damn sense anymore.

Why do bad things happen to good people? What about the reverse? Do awful, evil people still have guardian angels, and if so, for fuck’s sake why? If guardian angels are real, why do we have child molesters and rapists and racism and people still in slavery? What the hell are all those angels even doing?

Or can they do anything?

For my books, I decided the angels are already doing all they can. They have limits, including practical limits. This runs contrary to the concept of an all-powerful God (who presumably could skip all the angel stuff if He so chose). I’ve dodged on that by showing the angels don’t have all the answers, either, but the contradiction is there and I recognize it. I also decided that free will is an all-important concept for those angels. To serve the higher purposes of faith and the universe and whatever, the angels have to value and respect free will…including the free will to do horrible, abominable things.

The primary angel of my books, Rachel, is a foul-mouthed, spazztic hot mess. A lot of readers have probably wondered why. They’re waiting for an explanation. I would ask them to go look at the news or the world outside, and then I would ask, “Wouldn’t you be a mess, too?”

The thing is, I don’t feel like this is a perfect fix. It doesn’t put to rest all my questions of faith, or of why the world is such a garbage fire. I don’t think any fictional depiction ever could, let alone one I might dream up myself.

I’m not remotely the first person to tackle this. If you’re a person of faith in an all-powerful God, you get to tackle this sooner or later. It has a name. Philosophy calls this The Problem of Evil.

You may be an atheist, or follow a religion without angels or divine intervention, and that’s fine. I have no problem with either and I’m not here to argue it. But the overlap on people who go for “thoughts and prayers” and the people who believe in angels is pretty strong.

Statistics on gun violence aren’t far out of reach. Unlike angels, they are verifiably real and not a matter of faith. Those bodies in the morgue or fighting for life in the hospital aren’t a matter of fiction. The fact that even a majority of gun owners want rational measures like background checks is not a myth; that’s verifiably true. And the powers of Congress aren’t all make-believe.

We could do something about all this. We’ll never get rid of all the violence or all the guns. Everyone understands that. There are no perfect solutions. I’m sick to death of seeing “Your proposal wouldn’t stop this particular mass shooting, so what’s the point?” The point is curbing some of the violence. Any of it. The point is making it harder to kill people in droves. The point is that we need to actually try and not just mumble some bullshit about thoughts and prayers.

The point is that we have to actually try. We. Us imperfect mortals. Right now we aren’t even trying. We’re just thinking and praying and hoping.

Angels may be a complete myth. Total fiction. If so, we need to step up to this problem. And if they aren’t a myth, if they’re real, then it’s damn clear that they’re doing all they can already. We need to step up and work at this ourselves.

6 thoughts on “Our Angels Are Outgunned

  1. Mark

    Well, I’ve heard the opinion that “We have turned from God so why shouldn’t he turn from us?” I’ve also heard “this is the beginning of the end as was foretold” and so is predestined. I have also heard that God gave us free will and THIS is what we choose to do with it. I’ve also heard that humans can’t understand God’s plan. Regardless, that’s why they call it faith. You believe IN SPITE of everything. As I recall we weren’t promised paradise until AFTER the bad stuff happens…

  2. Robert

    In order to drive a car, I had to get a Learner’s Permit requiring a birth certificate and parent’s approval. I had to take a semester long course in Driver’s Education that was 50 minutes a day, five days a week, for about three months (50 hours of training, give or take). I practiced at home under my parent’s supervision (you do not want to have my Mom supervising you, by the way). When I reached the appropriate age, I had to take and pass a written exam. Once I passed that I had to take an eye exam. Once I passed that I had to take a practical exam to show I could control a car. Then the state government felt I was safe to drive on the highways.

    One of the comparisons I hear all the time is that cars kill more people than guns do. In general terms, that is true. It is also true that there are many more people with cars than with guns. People balk at anything that would make it more difficult to get a gun, yet they have no problem with going through all that to get a driver’s license. Plus there is a minimal recertification (I have to pass the eye exam) to renew my license every eight years or so.

    I keep thinking that at some point, sanity will take over. Then I remember that there is a lot of money involved.

  3. Phillip

    Here’s the thing about more strict gun control.. People say they want it, but never have an idea of what it should entail. A background check? That’s already part of it. I think the only more in depth background check is the one to set up an FFL or get a tax stamp on a restricted weapon so you can actually buy it. The comparison to a driver’s license is sorta moot since if you are over 18 you could literally go there and walk out same day without any Driver’s Education courses or Learner’s permit.

    I’m not saying we shouldn’t do something, the question is what… while keeping to how we write our laws, which are by design written in such a way as to preserve the maximum freedom for those who would not break them. Our laws rely upon those Rights we have and for the law abiding citizen they should not be curtailed or only done so to the absolute minimum degree.

    And the issue isn’t really the money involved. Gun sales to citizens don’t even come close to computer sales (cybercrime), or Car sales (DUI death/injury), and the victims of gun crimes are far less than computer or vehicular crimes. There’s a lobby for everything, and I doubt the gun lobby has a hands down lead in funds versus the anti-gun lobby.

  4. Ray

    Not that I don’t want to hear what you got to say because a lot of times it is in lightning with that being said can I get an update on your Next book

  5. Travis Brown

    I don’t believe this is a gun control issue. I believe this is a free will issue. I believe God is all-powerful, but I believe he believes we are all his children; from the pastor in the pulpit to the Vegas shooter to members of terrorist organizations. I believe God is crying tears of grief when things like what happened in Vegas occur, for those slain and for the killer. Imagine if your children were fighting and even killing each other, but you loved them enough to give them free will to work it out.

    Another thought, the issue with the Vegas shooter didn’t start when he got a gun in his hand. Albeit a gun is designed to kill people, it must have a motive and intention to kill behind it. The issue probably started years before when that shooter didn’t hear uplifting words from his parents, or love from his circle of friends. It started with loneliness and isolation; which is a trend with most mass shooters. Unfortunately we can’t put an APB out for every lonely and isolated person, but we can be conscious of those people who may seem to be shunned in our own communities. Invite them out to lunch and maybe even get them involved within your own circle of friends. God’s love is best felt through relationship.

    There is a book called The Shack ( William P. Young) that excellently explains the “why bad things happen and God doesn’t do anything” question.

    As always Elliot I love your books and eagerly await your next!

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