I sit and stare at my empty screen, a thousand words swirling inside of me, but none appropriate to this moment. I am so sorry, London.
The worst part is that the sight and sound of devestation no longer shocks me. I expect it. I turn on the news in the morning and anticipate the disasters. When they don't come I find I am waiting. Expecting.
I am told this is evidence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I am skeptical. That would mean I am on my 4th year of Post Trauma. Come on. I think this is more a reflection of the reality of the way things are. A coping mechanism in our Brave New World.
I know that people come into and go out of this world every moment of every day. I have gained some and lost some over the last couple of years -- illness, accidents, self inflicted injury -- we cannot know or control the appointed hour of our death, or the death of those we hold dear. But nothing seems such a travesty to me as a life lost as a result of a deliberate act of evil.
In "Wishful Thinking", Frederick Buechner defines Evil as follows:
"God is All Powerful
God is All-good
Terrible Things Happen
You can reconcile any two of these propositions with each other, but you can't reconcile all three. The problem of evil is perhaps the greatest single problem for religious faith. There have been numerous theological and philoshphical attempts to solve it, but when it comes down to the reality of evil itself, they are none of them worth much. When a child is raped and murdered, the parents are not apt to take much comfort from the explanation (better than most) that since God wants us to love him, we must be free to love or not to love and thus free to rape and murder a child if we take a notion to.
Christian Science solves the problem of evil by saying that is does not exist except as an illusion of mortal mind. Buddhism solves it in terms of reincarnation ad an inexorable law of cause and effect whereby the raped child is merely reaping the consequences of evil deeds it committed in another life.
Christianity, on the other hand, ultimately offers no theoretical solution at all. It merely points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene -- not even this -- but that God can turn it to good."
We look to you Father for the Peace that passes all understanding.
posted by Kim at 11:30 PM
3 Comments:
I don't agree with the quote that says Christianity offers no theoretical solution to the problem of evil. I don't agree with the beginning premise that the truths that God is Powerful, God is Good, Evil Happens...can not be reconciled. I mourn with those who mourn. I cry for the innocent victims of this terror.
The problem is sin. The problem in Free Will. The solution is eternity I think. No matter how long we have to suffer in this life...2years, 70 years, it is no more than a drop in the bucket when our eyes are on eternity. The death of a child is horrible, I know that full well, yet the Child is living in an eternal paradise...it is those who are left behind that suffer so. It's Sunday, and I am on my way to Church. I like going to Church!
Your post gave me something to pray about, something to think about. It hurts me that so many people out there have missed the point of the Cross. I'm not talking about you personally Kim, I think your closing prayer shows you really get it. The Peace that passes all understanding!
I'm glad you wrote your thoughts, Maryellen. I seem to get a different perspective from this writing than you did, and your note makes me wonder how others hear it. I'll try to explain what this says to me, and I hope others will tell me how it makes them feel.
To me, when the author says that Christianity offers no theoretical solution, I don’t think he insults Christianity, but rather complements it. Let me explain: I think as humans, we look for easy answers. We want 1+1 to equal 2. Period. We want life to be predictable and not messy. (at least I do.) We want cures. Preventions. Security. (perhaps this is the American point of view)… But Christianity says things like “27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong." 1 Cor 1:27 and "5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;" Proverbs 3:5.
Although I agree that sin is the reason the world is fallen, free will is the reason that God doesn’t intervene. It’s why God didn’t stop Cain from killing Abel. He stopped Abraham from killing Isaac – so we know He could jump in at any time - but He doesn’t. (i know there is a difference between those two moments, by the way. Cain killing in anger, Abraham preparing to kill in obedience to God. Still this shows that God can and does step in from time to time). Everyone sins, but not everyone experiences the consequences of sin the same way. Life is not fair. (If it was, every time you found yourself speeding on the interstate, you would get a ticket). If I paid the price for a fraction of my sins, I should be dead many times over. But I’m not. Sometimes the pain we feel when others suffer is pain from sheer guilt. Why them and not me?
I think that there is a tendency to believe that when we give our lives over to Christ, we will no longer need to worry about the troubles of the world. If only we just pray enough nothing bad will happen. (that is actually the daily prayer of my youngest child "Let nothing bad happen, let everything good happen"). But bad stuff does happen -- every day – no matter how pure or how righteous the prayer or the person who prays it. When terrible things happen, sometimes I find myself having the standard conversations in my head. “What was that child doing out all by herself? Where was her mother?” as if somehow if we can place blame on something or someone that was out of place at the wrong time, we could prevent this evil from happening again. We cling tighter to our life, try to secure the holes where evil might sneak in. We want assurances. Security from the fear of evil. But God is the only source of that security. That peace. His love is all that you can count on. And even if you do everything right, there are no guarentees in this world. Heaven is truly all we can hope for.
If we try to explain or justify the bad thing in an effort to comfort those who mourn, we fail. This brings to mind Job and his friends who in their effort to comfort him. They babble on and on, but fail dismally to bring any comfort to Job. In the end, some things are a question of faith - a question of coming face to face with your creator. No amount of theology can bring comfort. Only the Spirit of God that will bring healing and peace. (the peace that passes all understanding).
And now to the conclusion of the matter. I think you are absolutely right about Eternity. This life is a blink of an eye. I agree that our suffering is for a moment. That is the beauty and power of the cross. No matter what evil may happen in this world, we can look to the cross and know (as the author pointed out) that there is no darkness that can overcome us. None that can over take us. This was not so before Jesus, and not so for those who do not have the knowledge and love of Jesus. Ecclesiastes 9 points out as follows:
“1 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. 2 All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, [a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
As it is with the good man,
so with the sinner;
as it is with those who take oaths,
so with those who are afraid to take them. 3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all.”
The destiny he defines here is, of course, death. But because of the cross, we can now say “Death where is your victory, where is your sting?” Cor 15 (quoted by Paul out of Hosea) 55"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"[h] 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessings. I hope this makes clear my perspective of this piece. Thanks for sharing yours.
oops. i forgot the most important verse: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:38
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