You've more than likely heard about the tragic events that occurred early this morning in Aurora, Colorado. So, I won't bother going back over everything that we know, because it makes my heart heavy, as I'm sure it does for you as well.
That said, I do want to make one plea to everyone:
Please do not blame Batman.
If you know me at all (or have seen my presence on social media), then you are aware of my deep love for comic books, particularly superhero comic books. However, this is not why I am writing this. If I were, it'd be more about how you shouldn't try to compare The Dark Knight Rises to The Avengers. This post is more about why we care so much about what happened last night, and why it matters.
During my short lifetime on this planet, there has been quite an lot of events to occur that shock our nation. I remember the school shooting in Columbine, Colorado. Obviously, I would not have been old enough to understand exactly what everything meant-but I've lived with the consequences as a graduate of the public school system post-Columbine. I remember 9/11. How could anyone forget. Those are memories that are imprinted now in our entire country. I remember the Virginia Tech shootings a few years back. Many of us remember these events, how we felt, the way our hearts broke-and how we were shocked that it even happened.
There is nothing that I remember better about my childhood than my. fascination with superheroes. I loved what they stood for-protecting the cities they loved, the people they cared for, and ultimately, fighting for the greater good. Batman: The Animated Series, for example, never went over Batman's origins in the actual series. They didn't need to; the Tim Burton film had just been announced. As for us kids watching the series, we didn't need it. Batman was good. The goons he was beating down? Bad. It was simple. When you are a kid, it's a lot easier to believe that the world is that simple. Obviously, things are always more complicated than they seem. However, society today can spend all day debating what is "good" and what is "evil." More over than not, we've just decided that we can all decide what is good and what is evil by ourselves. I did. My superheroes taught me that there was a greater good that needed to be defended.
In our "everything is relative" lifestyles, the world sometimes likes to remind us that there is a such thing as pure evil. This happened last night. There is a such thing as pure good as well.
Ultimately, the idea taught to me by superheroes is what led me to understanding God and His love. Over and over, in the book of Genesis we see that God sees creation as "good." This must mean that He understands what good is. And, being God, He must have it more figured out than us. Isaiah 55:9 tells us “For as heaven is higher than earth, My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (HCSB)
God's thought process is different than our own, and He sees pure "good." Occasionally, we can see it too. We see it in the little things, the person who is willing to give a warm meal to a hungry stranger, the person who starts a push to raise money for a life saving procedure for a child. There is still good in this world...and beyond.
All of these shocking events I've lived through have taught me that. Evil does strike. Even so, goodness still manages to survive. The good guys still win.
So, if your kids ask about Aurora, Colorado, tell them that evil attacked, but the good guys got the bad guy.
Pray for Aurora. Keep those lives in your thoughts. Give those you care about an extra hug today. And go see The Dark Knight Rises. They worked way too hard on this film for evil to win.
Evil loses in the movie, too.
