Tim's been in the news. For a long time, I had my doubts that he was
actually guilty, so much of the evidence against him being circumstantial.
The prosecutors admitted as much. But then he confessed and began to
make a lot of other cold-hearted comments.
I lived a ten-minute drive away from downtown when the blast etched
Oklahoma City into the national consciousness, about five miles as the crow
flies. I had a rare day off and was at home that morning at 9:02 when the
rumble came. I was still in bed and the thought occurred to me that
something must have happened at the apartment complex where I lived. I
called the office.
"No, it wasn't here. I just talked to my girlfriend who works at The Greens
Apartment complex (about 15 miles further out) and she said she heard it,
too," the lady said. "I don't know WHAT that was."
I turned on the TV. One local channel -- regular programming, then another --
nothing special. Then a third. It had its helicopter in the air, flying around
downtown. I recognized the scene -- knew exactly where it was. The
helicopter was flying around this one building. The Alfred P. Murrah. I
knew the building well. I'd been in it many times in the course of my job. It
was a government building with an odd floor plan, I always thought. It
always seemed to me that when it was built about three times the normal
amount of steel and concrete was used in its construction. The visual playing
out on the TV screen that morning didn't do justice to the massive size of
the building. The building was HUGE.
The helicopter circled around on the south side of the building, the plume of
smoke clearly visible on an early spring day with picture-perfect weather,
the kind of weather the tourist bureau dreams of. "I know where that is," I
thought to myself. "What are they looking at?" The helicopter continued its
counter-clockwise flight around to the east of the Murrah, then, within seconds,
the full horror with all of its ugliness came into view. I'd been standing up in
front of the tube, but when I saw that, I had to find a place to sit. That building
was HUGE. What in the world had happened?
For weeks (and ever since) the awful calamity was in the news. The
devastating effects of the event are still being felt and probably will be for
some time. Some may never fully recover. Back then, many would venture
out to make a sort of pilgrimage around the building -- leave a memento at
the fence that had been erected -- a teddy bear, a flower, a farewell note
for a love that had been lost, for the workmate that was no more.
"Man, you oughta go down there. You wouldn't believe it" people would
tell me. Never the kind to follow the crowd, I declined. "I don't need to
see it. I know the building, and I've seen it on TV." I kept that stance until
the word came that the wreckage would be finished off. It would be
imploded on Tuesday, 7a.m. sharp.
I had no plans the Sunday before, so I went to see. So that I could say that I
did. Another picture-perfect day. No wind. No clouds. Perfect weather. Just
beautiful. Others had the same idea of coming to see the last weekend of the
Alfred P. Murrah -- there must have been three or four thousand people
walking around the eight or nine block radius that had been cordoned off.
Hundreds and hundreds of people. Couples with babies in strollers or young
children in hand. What struck me more than anything, a memory that still
haunts me, is how quiet it was. Even then, I wondered how all those people,
all those little kids and babies, made so little sound. I was down there for a
couple of hours, and the quiet almost became deafening. It was weird, so
quiet it was.
I was df'd at the time so I made my trip alone. And walked alone but not
for long. At one point, a Christian approached me. I didn't know the
denomination and didn't ask. I didn't care. She had a kind face and a warm
manner, not overbearing or preachy, so I endured the intrusion. I'd seen
more than one of her group passing out tracts in my sojourn around the
building. I assumed that her church was on some sort of mission to reaffirm
for the public God's loving care and almighty power. She gave me a small
tract and made a comment that was meant to soothe, something like: "God
loves you."
I was stunned by the incongruity of her words, considering the
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I happened to be on the north side
of the building at the time, the side with the tremendously gaping absence of
what was once tons of concrete and steel -- the tomb of 168 humans, several
of them infants and children. Even though I was two blocks away from it
right then, the massive building loomed seemingly right overhead, aching to
add to the quiet dialog. It offered a silent but unmistakable counterpoint to
the Christian's words. I personally saw little evidence of God's love, and to
the lady's comment the Murrah seemed to agree, "Oh, yeah?"
The Blast is far from the solitary example of man's inhumanity to his
fellowman whilst an all-loving God watched in mute silence. It's perhaps
not even the best example, probably not ranking in the top fifty all-time
greatest atrocities, but it did bring home to me personally what hardships
people all over the world and throughout history have been dealing with
since forever, afterwards sending unanswered appeals heavenward. It
reminded me of a question I asked several years ago when I began to
question the things I'd been taught about God.
I'd been taught that with the coming of the Messiah, Jehovah had all the
response he needed to Satan's Edenic challenge, that no human could (or
would) live a life of complete devotion to God without faltering. I'd been
taught that a legal precedent how been established in a Universal Court of
law. Since nothing more would be required to answer that four-thousand
year old challenge, Jehovah was free to extend its benefits to mankind at
any time. The questioned I asked and have since more or less found
answered, is: "What is God waiting on?"
Back on that spring day with the postcard perfect weather, as I ambled
around a wreck of an office building in the company of several thousand
other noiseless pedestrians, I was approached by a Christian and offered a
tract that spoke of God's love for humankind. I quietly thanked her for her
words and stuck the tract in my pocket. And I wondered about "God."
peace,
todd