Where Are You?
O Lord… where are you? We are in need of someone to save us, to save humanity…
How can you not see, when you told us you are the source of Light?
We have come to see nothing but fire… charring… and shame.
We were told you are Love, affection, and goodness…
Yet we live in the midst of evil, and in a sea of hatred.
You told us you are the creator of all things, and that man is your successor on Earth; you asked him, in every religion, not to associate partners with you.
And yet, there are gods on Earth who control mankind, demanding by force to be acknowledged. Just like you, they threaten woe and destruction if we disbelieve in them.
Our concern is no longer where you are. Our concern is: what are you doing?
My father and grandfather told me they heard from their ancestors that you “grant respite but never forget.” I said the same to my children without conviction.
Yesterday, my son asked me: when will you fulfill your threat, since you “never forget”?
Forgive me, O Lord… I need help because my heart and my mind are at war.
My mind has concluded that this wonderful, mysterious planet in the infinite universe is a failed project… but my heart tells me to be patient.
My mind leans toward believing those who said that Heaven and Hell are here on Earth, not beyond the isthmus of death.
It asks if you, in your divine essence, live among us and are not in some transcendental realm.
After all these years, I recall what the astronomer Carl Sagan said: that whoever created us on this beautiful, cursed planet left us to our own devices. We spend a few years here—not even a fraction of a second in cosmic time—and then we become a forgotten thing of the past.
I have grown afraid of myself… and of my cursed mind. It does not spare me, just as the killers and the ignorant do not spare me.
I have moved from doubt to a state of conviction that the concepts of good and evil, vice and virtue, reward and punishment, are nothing but instinctive concepts in animals, and cumulative, evolutionary human concepts tied to time and place, so that man may manage a daily life as mysterious as a cosmic black hole.
The instinctive animal loves, and kills to eat until it is full.
The human being kills without hunger, and is never full.
I have heard of massacres throughout history…
Of the Pharaohs, the Romans, Persians, Berbers, Tatars, Mongols, and Mamluks… the Vikings of old and the Vikings of today.
Of the campaigns of conquest, killing, captivity, and crucifixion in the Islamic conquests and the Crusades… even peaceful Buddhism… and the killing of children.
Of Nero’s Rome… of all the empires: Roman, Greek, Persian… of the uprooting of slaves, Native Americans, and Aborigines.
I read a history filled with slaughter… of civilizations from Sumer and Mesopotamia to the Egyptian and Indian… down to the savage civilization of today.
All of it is injustice, darkness, killing, blood, and massacres—uprooting people from their lands and plundering their wealth.
And they tell me you “grant respite”… and that punishment is inevitably coming.
And that everything happening is a “Divine Wisdom,” the secret of which is yours alone.
My birth was not my decision… nor is my departure.
Not even my name or my identity. You told me in your books it was your decision and my destiny. My destiny was to be created in this cursed Fertile Crescent, where you sent all your prophets… and yet this earthly, human riddle remains.
My mind asks: since you are capable of all things, why did you create evil alongside good? Why did Satan rebel with your consent?
Why did you not suffice with creating only good, so that all your creation would be righteous? What is the fault of humans—who are like helpless, wretched insects—that you afflict and test them from birth by the same standards, when they are not equal in intellect or perception?
And my heart says to me: “Shut up, you heretic.”
O Lord, on this beautiful, terrifying planet, while waiting for the day of your justice that “never forgets,” man established institutions to manage life within a minimum of order and law; he set standards for justice, freedom, and human dignity.
Today, states and entities are falling like autumn leaves.
Today, all standards and values have collapsed.
The gods of injustice and darkness have appeared in every corner of the earth.
Freedom of opinion and expression has fallen.
Human dignity has fallen.
The United Nations and international institutions have fallen.
The “gods” have appeared… and you are still “granting respite and not forgetting.”
Where is the escape? And how can a human live without a shred of hope?
Hope was the reward for patience… but patience has run out.
The hope was that the Lord, after all these ages and times, must take revenge on the tyrants… but they grew more tyrannical and oppressive… and the innocent are still waiting for Divine Justice.
It is as if time itself is our enemy.
Why do the oppressors prosper, despite your threat of painful torment? And why do the people of good suffer, despite your promise of gardens of bliss?
Forgive me, O Lord…
Are we truly unique creatures with minds, who never did and never will know why we are on this mysterious planet… left alone?
O Lord… help me.
And O Humans… we have no alternative but to appreciate this planet and this creation… and to love as much as we possibly can… and to preserve it.
To love among our families, our friends, and all the people of the earth… to compensate, if only slightly, for the fear of eternal loneliness.
O Lord… forgive me for my words, and light my path so that I may overcome my mind—the source of my torment.
Where are you, O Lord?
February 28, 2026
@Hassan_Ahmed_Khalil
