overcoming death (and destruction)

ok, so....as i was strolling in my garden this morning, clutching my coffee and making my mental list of chores for the day.....a unfamiliar car pulled in the driveway......we get very little traffic on our circle, let alone actual random visitors that i was a bit stunned.....especially given that i was wearing my typical saturday morning garb: pajama bottoms, a tshirt and a fleece vest......a woman got out of the backseat, in a sunday dress clutching her purse....she introduced herself, and explained that they were going out to meet their neighbors, and she wanted to ask me a question....was i discouraged by all of the death and destruction i see lately?.......gentle readers......as a sunday school teacher i knew where she was going with this conversation, and i made the split second decision that i wasn't going there.......at least not yet......i replied with a broad smile that i saw only promise and reason for hope, now that barak obama is about to get the nomination and bring us all together......the woman replied that even barak obama cannot save us from death and destruction....only a personal relationship with jesus christ.......i countered with my belief that barak obama does have a personal relationship with jesus christ and i feel very hopeful and inspired to a better future for us all.....and then she asked me if i didn't think that the earthquake and the cyclone and the death and destruction was not a sign that too many people have turned away from god.....and i pointed to my yard...to the trellis rose with it's 1000 creamy blooms, and to the beds beyond.....to the blur of pinks and reds and white....and asked this woman how i could believe that god did not still wish us all well, having such a glorious spring morning to behold.......i did use the word behold.....i added that special touch of biblical reference.....we were at that moment in the direct path of the trellis rose's lemony aroma.....it is quite intoxicating, by the way....and i see the addition of fragrance to my argument as my own personal sign that there is a god...but i digress......i knew that the only way this woman and her friends would leave was by admitting that we are sunday-school attending church-goers.....i fully understand that these folks look around and see nothing but pain and suffering, and they feel that if we all believed the way they do that we would all be better off.....it is this single-belief system that many christians cling to.....there are as many references to god loving us all in the bible.....which implies tolerance to me.......but enough of this.....the day is just too lovely to spend arguing salvation.......