I’ve been reading a lot of literature about the presence of God, raising the question of where God is in times of great tragedy.

And the Word Was, by Bruce Bauman, explores a father’s journey in India after he loses his son in a school shooting in the states, his wife to adultery, and his job in the media and legal frenzy that follows the shooting. He turns to the teachings of a Holocaust survivor to understand his own urge to injure those he hates, who have caused him pain, the school shooters, and their parents who sue him, as well as his wife, whom he still loves, but by whom he feels deeply betrayed. He seeks to still believe in God, to go to temple, but feels absolutely deserted.

Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million is Martin Amis’s exploration of Stalin (Koba the Dread) in Russia from 1917 to 1933, and the death of twenty million people. The question he raises is how Western leftists can know all of this about Stalin and still be communist affiliated. And, really, he is talking about (and to) his dad, Kingsley Amis. This is a nonfiction book; it is epic in its accounts, and personal. And it is essentially about the existence of great tragedy. Amis never asks where God is, but that seems to be the question that naturally arises.

So where is God?

God is everywhere; God is nowhere; God has abandonned us; God is in every breath; God never existed; God is all around us, even in times of tragedy. These are the answers that are offered. All of those answers, even the seeming contradictions, may be the only way to answer the question.