God and Human Suffering

I spoke for about two hours today on "God and Human Suffering." to about seventy folks at Fellowship Denver Church. If it goes on line, I will post the lecture here. I can also send you the outline if you would like one.

The Art of Condolence Writing

As I read cards and Facebook posts and emails of condolence, I wonder over the art of writing a condolence message. What, exactly, makes it apt? A few elements come to mind.

Of course, one should express genuine sorrow, which may or may not be captured by a prefabricated card. But if one used a set text from such a card, one needs to add a few of one's own words in one's own handwriting. The sorrow should not be despairing (which is the sin of giving up on God), but respectful and tender.

Another aspect of condolence is remembering and appreciating the life now over: a few words about the deceased smile or laugh or kindness. This sparks bright memories that dispel a bit of the harsh darkness of death.

The better condolences also offer hope for the bereft, the bereaved, the grieving; they offer some non-cliched reason to believe your sorrow will lighten, your life will move into brighter places, that this death will one day be swallowed up in victory (if that can be honestly said of the newly dead).

Other condolences are less wise; their vices include overused phrases robbed of meaning through overuse: "earth's loss is heaven's gain," and so on. Better to use your own faltering words than to steal such stock phrases. Yes, "its the thought that counts"--but why not try to match the right words (one's own words) with such sentiments?

Perhaps the most grievous failure in words of condolence is silence--no words at all. Those close to you and your beloved deceased write nothing. Why is this? Perhaps these souls are overwhelmed by the prospect of writing such weighty words. Instead of failing (after all, how many of them are professional writers or pastors or counselors--people who are supposed to know how to do such things?), they succeed by doing nothing, claiming an inability that renders them mute, thus making the bereaved even more lonely in their losses.

The Arrest: Illness Unbidden (Corrected)

I read in Solzhenitsyn of the inimitable horrors of "The Arrest," the first chapter of The Gulag Archipelago. A scant ten pages in, and I had to stop reading. Imaging that kind of world was too unsettling. Although I live in America, I felt some pangs of paranoia. Might I be so arrested, taken as a political prisoner? Innocent civilians could be arrested at any time--even during an operation, even while taken on a date by a supposed suitor--and for any (or no) reason. This is how communism works: pure tyranny and pure terror. One's entire life, way of being, could be arrested, nullified--by that ruthless and heartless State playing God (and thus aping Satan).

Then, in light of the chronic suffering of several loved ones, I realized that illness is an "arrest." One is taken away from the familiar, the taken-for-granted way of life. We presuppose health as a condition for being: for walking, sleeping, even thinking. Then...we are arrested by illness--and often without warning, often during the best of times, or, at least, when our fears of this arrest have waned. The arrest comes unbidden: a loud and rude rap on the door in the middle of the night; as an interruption of a pleasant event--when we least expect the suddenness and sadness of it.

To where are we being dragged away? We know we are taken from the familiar, the usual, our homes, our loves, our likes, our boredoms. But to where? What will the prison will like? Who are the guards? What are the terms of release--if any? What will be left of my ties to friends, family, strangers, work, rest?

One have been arrested, and arrests are never pleasant or polite. They are rude, rough, unsettling--full of dread. One is taken captive, passive, yet required to do all manner of new and unmannerly things--tests, treatments, long sentences of waiting for test results, therapies that may bring more pain than relief, which may cause new symptoms, new maladies.

This arrest--the arrest of illness--is not accompanied by thugs of the state, as was Solzhenitsyn's arrest. No; loved ones try to offer help and hope. But they, too, have been arrested (I have been thus arrested), for their lives with the afflicted will not be the same. Routines change; hopes are deferred or will die; plans are scattered; the future stares back with opaque malignity.

Jesus Christ was arrested. He was arrested only after he healed the sick of manifold ills, raised the dead, loved the most unlovely, and preached the truth of good news of God's grace, forgiveness, and restoration--and the bad news of God's inescapable judgment of the unrepentant. This rebel with no weapons, this dissident with no death squads, was arrested, ripped away from his disciples, by a clutch of thugs led by a traitor in his midst, whom he had loved. He was taken away, to be punished for crimes he did not commit, to be spit upon, struck, and mocked by creatures he had himself created. He was tried without reason and sentenced without evidence. But that was the least of it. This arrest, trial, and conviction was unto a Cross, a torture stake: the cruelest invention of man's sadistic mind.

Yet he came to be arrested, taken away to injustice, torture, torment, and death. It was no surprise to him. It was foreordained for him to be forsaken, betrayed, rejected, sickened, dejected, desolated.

Our arrests come unbidden. His did not. While he absorbed the pain and despised the shame, he did it for those who authorized his arrest. This blood-work was wrought from eternity and endures for posterity.

Let all who are arrested by illness (or any of life's all-too-varied tragedies) remember that arrest, that prisoner, that Cross-bearer...who while taken down dead from the Cross, rose alive from the dead, scars remaining, but with life unending. The lamb who was slain has begun to reign: a more arresting thought cannot be thought.

Finding Meaning in Suffering

I will be speaking on suffering in the Christian life at Fellowship Church of Denver on Saturday, March 5. Please come.

Lament

Someone should compose a universal lament, that bewails all the major categories of this cracked earth's woundedness, and which does so before the face of God.

Prayers from The Book of Common Prayer

57. For Guidance

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favor, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally, by thy mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

58. For Guidance

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light riseth up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what thou wouldest have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in thy straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.

59. For Quiet Confidence

O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lament

My lament for all Denverites who suffer from chronic illnesses made far worse by extreme weather changes, of which we will experience tomorrow--again. Those not effected should pray and show kindness to those who will be devastated.