GOD'S RELATIONSHIP TO HUMAN SUFFERING

Hard Times, Chicago, IL

This anonymous quote that rationalizes God’s relationship to human suffering was shared by the minister who officiated at our wedding. He found it to be comforting after his young wife’s car was rear ended into a speeding train and was killed, leaving him to raise their two young children:

“Suffering is not God's desire for us, but it occurs in the process of life. Suffering is not given to teach us something, but through it we may learn. Suffering is not given to punish us, but sometimes it is the consequence of our sin or poor judgment. Suffering does not occur because our faith is weak, but through it our faith may be strengthened. God does not depend on human suffering to achieve his purposes, but sometimes through suffering his purposes are achieved. Suffering can either destroy us, or it can add meaning to our life”.

Suffering may not be God’s ultimate desire for the human race, but it is certainly part of an environment where both nature and mankind have been corrupted and one that allows free will choices of good or evil. We do live in a broken world with all sorts of suffering and pain visited upon everyone at some time. And much human suffering is a consequence of man’s inhumanity to man or is brought upon ourselves. Seeing that suffering in little children is especially troublesome. We all share the common destiny of mortal death which can be accompanied by suffering, but we have no understanding of what more serious issues could have been in someone’s path if life were extended. We can generally handle news of a faraway event that rains suffering on a foreign land, but when it strikes close to home it becomes much more personal.

Our response to suffering is critical. For many, a steadfast resolve, deepening faith and inner courage are revealed. Our time of suffering is temporary when viewed in the grand scheme of eternity. In the midst of suffering, this quote could bring some clarity, however. And we have been assured that God will be with us always. No matter what challenges we encounter in life, we will never have to face them alone. God can also help us bring good out of any bad situation.

It’s important that we don’t default to simple platitudes in a sincere attempt to comfort those who are suffering such as, “Everything happens for a reason; It’s part of God’s plan; It must be the will of God; God needed another angel in Heaven”, etc. All these well-meaning phrases we’ve all heard in a time of need wrongly implicates God as the source of suffering which can turn people away from their Heavenly Father at precisely the time they need him the most. Folks can often simply benefit from a good friend’s presence in such times. Silence can be a much better healer than trite phrases which imply that a friend’s suffering has been orchestrated by their loving Creator. And healing does always occur, just not always in this mortal life. We’ll ultimately understand when we individually journey to the other side.

OUTLIERS

Vincent, Chicago Art Institute, IL
Vincent's Room, Chicago Art Institute, IL

Unappreciated Impressions of Life

Statisticians track groupings of data to plot trends by drawing lines through the epicenter of scattered data points. Any points that fall outside of the normal grouping are considered outliers. They don’t fit the data and are anomalies which are generally excluded. People exhibit these tendencies also. Many “outsiders” march to a different drummer. And we ostracize them for the most part instead of celebrating their diversity. Ironically, many of these people become recognized posthumously as the geniuses that we couldn’t recognize while they were living. We couldn’t see past our own filtered biases and narrowly focused concept of acceptable. We stayed inside the boundaries of our own comfort zones. Jesus was an outlier. Vincent van Gogh was an outlier. One suffered for his sanity; the other for all humanity. Both sought to free mankind from their view of the world but their impact wasn’t immediately appreciated until after their death.

                                                              Vincent's Pieta

Human nature seems to allow people to find self-worth in putting down others that don’t fit our template or threaten the status quo. It's been said that the only good reason to look down on someone is so that you can better help them up. Jesus cautioned us to take the log out of our own eye before focusing on the speck in our neighbor’s eye. The religious establishment in his time, the Sanhedrin, definitely saw Jesus as a threat to their established and profitable status quo when he began his ministry at the age of 30 for the last three years of his life. His radical message went against the grain of contemporary religion.

Every time I have the opportunity and pleasure of viewing some of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings, I’m amazed that his talent and genius were never celebrated in his lifetime while he was creating over 2,000 artworks. He was never able to support himself through the vocation he had chosen for the last ten years of his life. Interestingly, Vincent’s father Theodorus was a country minister and his mother Anna Cornelia was an artist. At the age of 25 Vincent volunteered to move to an impoverished coal mining area in the south of Belgium where he preached, ministered to the sick and sketched the people who lovingly called him “Christ of the Coal Mines”.

But Vincent’s adult life was plagued by a progressive mental illness that could have had multiple causes. He died two days after he shot himself in the chest at the age of 37 in a wheat field he had been painting. He painted his stark room in Arles in expectation of having Gauguin partner with him in his dream of gathering a collective of creative artists to challenge the established Academie in Paris. The Academie’s annual juried art show was extremely profitable for the traditional establishment of artists and dealers. But they shunned the younger painters who were creating their unique and different impressions of life. After a crazed confrontation with Gauguin, Vincent fled to a local brothel where he severed the lobe off his right ear and handed it to Rachel--something many people remember him for as much as his artwork. All of his subsequent self-portraits were painted with a left profile. The ominous black crows hovering over the vibrant amber wheat field that he painted shortly before his suicide reveals much about his decaying, tormented mind. Yet he found solace in his work and continued to create unappreciated masterpieces.

Vincent’s brother Theo sold only one of his paintings for 400 francs and he was never recognized in his lifetime. His own mother destroyed crates full of his paintings after his death. However, one of the 37 self-portraits he painted in a three year period shortly before his death over one hundred years ago was sold at auction in 1998 for a near record $71.5 million in New York City. At least that one art lover understood what Vincent was trying to say to him. Vincent was semi-homeless until his death, as he moved frequently and never could afford a permanent home. And Jesus left nothing of material value upon his death at 33. But over two thousand years later, the world celebrates his priceless words of life and hope and gives billions of dollars to support His teachings for us to love our common Creator and one another. This in spite of all the burnings of the world’s best-selling book over the years which were intended to destroy the unappreciated legacy and language of His unique and different impressions of life.

Don McLean’s hit song Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) is a poignant overview of Van Gogh’s tragic and creative life. And the DVD, Josh Groban in Concert, produced by David Foster, has one of the most moving interpretations of the music that you will ever experience:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oybfFoq7Yow

The lyrics capture the “eyes that know the darkness in my soul” and lament “how you suffered for your sanity, how you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they’re not listening still.
Perhaps they never will…”

The following link has an excellent video clip of Vincent’s paintings set to the song along with the lyrics:

http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starrynightlyrics.html

SUFFERING

Last Hour, Jamestown, NC

“If God is God, he’s not good. If God is good, he’s not God.” That’s what you will often hear from those who cannot reconcile the pain, suffering and death in this existence. Frankly, it’s a fair observation without much reflection. The world IS broken and we’re surrounded by these realities every waking day—that’s why some folks stay in bed on occasion. It’s probably one of the best arguments for atheism. But without a moral compass in the universe, how can we discern good versus evil in the first place? If there is no God in control of all this, we have no need for the notion of right and wrong. If folks argue that natural selection has left us with human beings that are predisposed to knowing the difference, then perhaps we should lay blame on natural selection that depends on the survival of the fittest, the destruction of the weakest, like we see on the Serengeti Plains of Africa or in countless acts of genocide.

I’ve considered this before, and I still think that the free will we humans enjoy has something to do with this. If we are to have a relational existence with our creator, we must have the ability to choose or reject it. If we are to attempt a good life, we must have choices that demonstrate our desire to choose goodness. If we are to fully appreciate life, we must lose it. If perfection is to be recognized, we must experience imperfection first. For this to happen, we must exist in a broken environment. But we’ve been promised that we do not walk alone and Immanuel knows our pain. His Son took this suffering upon himself during his mortal life and death on a Roman cross. And any suffering endured in this brief mortal life will render the next eternal spiritual one infinitely sweeter. Since His light, presence and service are manifested in his followers, the world still turns on its axis. But I believe that a truly living hell could be defined by eternally existing in the absence of His presence and light among those who did not choose rightly.

The Daylily can be so informative if we take the time needed to observe their short life cycle. When their time has come, they open their buds out into the hazardous world around them that’s teeming with drought, fungus, insects, wind, hail, rabbits, deer and humans. They bravely give life their best shot and proudly display their colors to provide us human beings a glimpse of beauty personified. Then life begins to withdraw as they fade into the darkening nighttime with the hope of a bright resurrection sometime in the future. Christianity does not have definitive scientific proof for the existence of God or a promised spiritual life after death. Reasoned faith is a requisite. But it does provide the hope and courage to weather the storms and successfully emerge on the other side where all mankind and nature are restored in a new heaven and earth. Jesus’ miracles involving death, physical and mental disabilities, disease, chaotic nature, etc., didn’t simply suspend the natural order, but demonstrated his power to restore it. And I’ll bet there will be Daylilies present that will have to be renamed!

HEALING

The Power Within, Greensboro, NC

I’ve been fortunate in life. It wasn’t until late in life that I’ve dealt with any major surgeries or serious accidents as I’ve traversed a variety of adventurous paths. My recent knee replacement has brought all of this back into perspective. I’ve watched with wonder as the wound that travels along a twelve inch length of my leg has slowly but surely healed over and is now just a thin red line where the gaping incision was made to replace my original equipment with the latest titanium model.

I found it amusing during one of my first days in a reconditioning facility to discover that the morning background music was the Rock ‘N Roll genre that defined my formative years of high school and college. It became obvious that these business folks had done their demographic homework and were following the first wave of the baby boomer generation that is now moving into their senior years while continuing to break new ground for active living. As a trained Industrial Engineer, I learned the rationale of Sutton’s Law early on in my career. Slick Willie Sutton had robbed one hundred banks in the mid 1900’s and was asked why he had chosen a life of crime to rob them. His infamous response was “because that’s where the money is”.

One of the main activities of Jesus’ three year ministry involved healing. He restored a blind man’s sight and a lame man’s ability to walk again. He drove out demons and even brought folks back from the dead. Yet, everywhere he traveled there were hundreds of people who continued to suffer and even those who were healed eventually shared the common fate of all human beings. These events demonstrated his ultimate power over this world and even death itself. Many folks get angry with God when petitions for healing are not immediately received. Some even use that example as a reason to not believe. And yet, we’re surrounded by thousands of examples of healing every day of our lives when we experience such seemingly trivial things as a slight paper cut on a finger. Blood clotting immediately springs into action to stop the bleeding and life threatening infections. The miracles of healing can be overlooked and never given a second thought or cause for thanksgiving. Our mortal bodies are fearfully and miraculously made by our eternal creator and father. We are the care giver but He is the cure giver. As priceless water revitalizes parched lands, the divine light within us provides priceless healing vitality and strength coursing throughout our weakened bodies. It’s almost impossible to guess how many times this occurs throughout our lifetimes.

When we’re facing a serious need for healing, it’s good to get a plan and deal with everything including our daily lives one day at a time. And we need to be committed to living each of those days to the fullest while not getting too far ahead of ourselves. We then deal with those things we can control and trust God for the rest. Healing can be both a physical and a mindful experience.

I’ve learned that pain is an expression of weakness leaving the body. The prayers of others for strength and healing do indeed translate to God’s positive response in the body. And even those prayers for healing our mortal bodies during our last hours on this planet are answered with a new and completely restored spiritual body in the next eternal life where no pain, suffering or tears exist.