When I clicked on the “add new post” link on my blog I almost broke my mouse.

This particular click was not a happy click. Neither was it a bored click excited click dreamy click interested click nor a tired click. This click was an mad click. This click said “I AM INCENSED RIGHT NOW AND I AM GOING TO USE MY FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO RIP THE SUBJECT OF MY FURY A NEW ONE IN THE NEXT TWENTY MINUTES.”

Many of you understand my affinity for twitter the micro-blogging social networking site. In fact my tweets show up through there on the right hand column of this blog. It’s sort of love “hey I have an interesting thought or idea. I’ll send it into cyberspace for whoever wants to share it with me.” A truly cool part of twitter is the “trending” list on the homepage– it shares the most popular words or phrases being used by people with twitter all over the world. (pause this thought… I’ll get back to it.)

I also have a major obsession with checking the news via the internet. The very first bookmark on my bookmarks toolbar is to my own personal google webpage with about 10 constantly changing lists from various and sundry local national and world news sources.

The biggest piece of news right now of course is the devastating earthquake that has destroyed much of Port-au-Prince the capital town of desperately poor Haiti. My heart is breaking for the people of that nation. When I first encountered the headlines early yesterday night announcing the magnitude of the quake and reporting that no communication with the people in the former French colony was to be had I was overwhelmed with foreboding. The results have been far more devastating that I could have feared. Tens of thousands are dead multitudes including a missionary that I grew up meeting at camp and cathedral are missing. I cannot even conceive how her husband who has been air lifted to Guantanamo for medical treatment can be feeling. Jeanne Munos is missing believed to have been in a structure that is collapsed. Suddenly life seems far more fragile. I am acutely aware of my own privileged position and a heaviness connected to the ignorance of the fate of Jeanne lays on my chest. Today’s technology has brought images of the devastation directly to my laptop screen and my heart weeps for the broken nation of Haiti.

Ok back to twitter: like I checked my twitter feed for the 506th time today scanning the trending topics I noticed a unique one: Pat Robertson. What I asked myself can he be doing on the trending list? I should have known that as I quickly found out the televangelist has claimed that the people of Haiti have brought this calamity upon themselves (see the “Life: Religion and Respect” link under “Beacon” at the top of this page for my thoughts on televangelists in general).  Yup. The guy says that the Haitians are paying for their revolution against the French and their “pact with the devil” with this earthquake. Um excuse me? Keep in mind that this man has claimed that other major catastrophes such as 9/11 and Katrina are in fact the fault of the victims.

Right. So let’s scold the nation that is crying out for assist in the aftermath of the natural disaster that they’re suffering from. We’ll just say well serves you right your ancestors screwed up and call it a day. You deserved it. My response? Even if they did deserve it how could someone make a comment like that mere hours behind such a catastrophe? Sure go ahead and trust whatever you want except don’t say it on national television. Call me blasphemous but I am pretty sure Jesus would not have done that… I gamble he’d be on his way to Port-au-Prince sleeves rolled up and ready to begin digging amid the rubble. Jesus was just that kind of guy and comments like Robertson’s just detract attention from the love that Jesus called us all to show.

Well. I did get off two angry tweets (containing the words “disgust” “pharisee” and “*%)#*%!”) and open this page before I saw an interesting link amidst the chatter involving the words “Pat Robertson”– a link to the blog of writer Donald Miller. As I read Miller’s post I could feel the rage dissipating from my body. The room became a little less red the angry tears that threatened to spill out of my eyes lost their momentum and the force that I was typing with became significantly less.

Miller says this:

Robertson’s loudness and shock-jock verbiage seems strange and oddly uncompassionate. It felt like he was trying to tell us how tough he was not how compassionate God is.

An appropriate response to Haiti:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink I was a stranger and you invited me in..”

An appropriate response to Pat Robertson:

“You seem angry and tired. Christ loves you. He is not impressed with your religious posturing. He really loves you. You don’t have to hide behind anything anymore. The good news really is that good.”

When I reached this the end of Miller’s post I agreed with him. He offers several more ideas about Robertson and his comments before this conclusion that calmed me and helped me understand how someone could even think of saying something like that.

I guess Pat Robertson is lucky that a) he wasn’t standing near me when I read what he said and b) I am not a major figure in any sort of media circle. I’m serene quite upset by his comment but instead of wanting to hit the man about the head I pity him and his shortage of love the wonderful love that drives me and convinces me that there must be a God and he must not be about vengeance.