To Sing Frogs Chapter 31d

Photo of Marina from when she entered the orphanage

Hell had been on my mind since I left Russia. You can’t leave a child like Marina in an orphanage and not think about Hell.

What haunted me wasn’t Alighieri’s Inferno. I don’t believe in beings with heads screwed on backwards, those whipped by demons, others swimming in boiling blood and fire, or those encapsulated in ice. The Hell I believe in is not even an inferno where disobedient souls wade through feces for eternity. Dante was full of it.

Still, if heaven and hell exist, how could innocent children remain in Marina’s situation? I realize that to ask such a question is to join a long and distinguished list. Many who belong to that group are led to a seemingly obvious conclusion.

Amy could never think it. The answer is simple and mercifully allows those who claim it to shrug without pain. Who could blame the person—observing the worst of this world—for arriving at a conclusion that God does not exist?

I look at the plight of orphans and unlimited other horrible things. No one could successfully argue that there has ever been more need for a Supreme Being. If God does not exist, I would be appalled by His absence. In such a case I would hate the wisest of souls, if only for his careless nonexistence.

No. I believe in God. But I know at least enough about the universe to understand that I don’t have the ability to comprehend its vastness.

That’s how the conversation evolved when I returned from work that night and Amy told me what happened with Sarah. I talked of a demon birth-mother. Of abuse. Of neglect. Amy expounded about a loving God who had kept things from getting worse. I continued to return to the subject of neglect. My wife read between the lines. Then she sighed. She had already fallen victim many times to answers provided by a calculator when I offered evidence that God could not be personally involved with all His children. “He cares about us John. He cares.”

“I’m not in disagreement.”

“He loves His children. All of them.”

“Point concurred.”

“He loves Marina. More than you do.” Amy knew what was bothering me and now she was going for my throat. “He will help her.”

“How— ”

“I don’t know how, John,” she interrupted. “I don’t know how many people have lived on earth. I don’t know how many worlds are in the cosmos. I don’t know how many seconds the universe has existed.”

Five times ten to the seventeenth. Half of a quintillion.

“And I don’t want to know!” she said as she saw my eyes flash. “I don’t need to know. And neither do you.”

It was my turn for input but she cut me off again.

“I see you and how much you love our children. I see how much you love ones who don’t have parents.”

A lot of good it does.

“I know you will help your children. I know you will help other ones too. I don’t know how. I don’t know how you do your job. I don’t know how you invent pumps or how you invest money. I don’t know how you set up machines or how you get patents. I don’t need to know. I just know that you know. I know you care. I know you want to help. I know you will. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. I just know you want to and you will. How could I believe in you and not believe in God?”

I didn’t say I didn’t believe in God but I realized bringing up the point would only be an argument in semantics. I couldn’t win arguments with people who didn’t care about how.

Besides, I didn’t really want to win an argument as much as I wanted my friends, and particularly Marina, to have families. I knew my opinions and bantering wouldn’t change anything on that important level. At least Amy and Sarah believed there was something that could be done. Their plan of unadulterated faith couldn’t possibly hurt. I might as well allow them to carry it out it in peace.

 

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