How to face the reality of suffering and evil

There's a lot of talk these days about the evil of the world and much concern about the suffering many of us experience. Questions about God, suffering, and evil will abound as the ten year anniversary of 9/11 comes and goes.

Here's something that challenges us to see things differently--

John Goldingay, a distinguished Old Testament professor, has written a remarkable memoir of his 43 year marriage, much of it challenged by his wife's experience with multiple sclerosis.  In the final years before her death in 2009, she was unable to walk or even speak.

To students who often struggle intellectually with the nature of God and the reality of suffering and evil, Goldingay often says:

"It's odd that people who are not suffering often seem to fret more about this problem than people who are? . . . [The people who worry about such things] are people who each day have food to eat and sunshine to enjoy and friends to share life with and a roof over their head and God to talk to.  What on earth are we to make of the fact that there is so much good in the world?  Isn't that at least as striking as the fact that there is so much evil?"

Yes, that fact is at least as striking.

Taking hold of that fact more consistent with a life of prayer that's nourished by the teaching of another Old Testament scholar who writes: "And God saw all that he had made and indeed it was very good" (Genesis 1.31).

Baby Medina and the Truth about Postpartum Depression

I've frequently advocated for more sunshine on mood disorders, depression, and mental health (see posts here and here and here and here).  Here's an important post on emotional health among pregnant women and new moms.  From patricaneufeld.wordpress.com

This week’s death of baby Medina, who was allegedly thrown from a parking structure by his mother, is a tragedy. And her husband’s plea that more be done to recognize and treat postpartum depression is courageous and needed. However, as a therapist specializing in women’s emotional health, and especially postpartum depression, it’s important that we recognize that depression around child birth very, very rarely leads to such desperate and tragic acts.

Identifying a baby’s killing with postpartum depression may do more harm than good. It may silence those who suffer rather than helping them talk about their experience. Postpartum depression is the most misunderstood, undiagnosed, and untreated complication of childbirth. One in six women suffer from depression during pregnancy and after childbirth. Until recently, very few physicians screened for this kind of depression. But that’s changing in Fresno. Many of us are working to help women find the resources they need not just to survive depression, but to thrive.

The truth is, mood disorders around childbirth are treatable. If you wonder if you or someone you care about is having emotional difficulty while pregnant or after childbirth, contact: Postpartum Support International at www.postpartum.net, or locally in the Fresno area, contact, www.calmhappysafe.com.

The art of dying

Two people. Two hours apart. Two people face to face with death. The first has decided to forgo cancer treatment. Too much for her weary body. And the chances of improvement are next to nil. Treatment would not do much to slow the disease, and would drastically diminish this person's quality of life. (Note: I'm a real advocate for proper treatment, under proper medical care . . . so don't interpret this as a post advocating avoidance of treatment).

"My friends think I'm giving up," she tells me. "But far from it. I'm taking a different path. I am actively and creatively surrendering to God. I am bringing an inner vitality to my encounter with cancer. People around me may not understand this, but it's what I must do."

Many won't understand. But I do. After two decades of ministry among the dying, I've come to recognize this kind of decision as an act of dignity and self-determination, a witness to a deep and vibrant inner faith experience. And I've witnessed the way it brings new strength and an inner freedom to a person, even when they are outwardly captive.

The second person exemplifies this.

He stopped treatment months ago. He cannot leave his bed. His wife gently feeds him ice chips to bring relief to his parched lips. He's eager for death. It cannot come soon enough. "What would you like God to do for you?" I ask. "Take me . . . soon." There's no fear. No unfinished business. No anxious brooding of the family, trying to hold off death. Just surrender.

"Then I'll pray for you. But if you die soon, don't tell anyone I prayed for you," I tell him. I don't want them to think I have special powers. They might call me Pastor Kevorkian." I wink at the family. He grins.

Dying like this is an art. And it's beautiful.

I'm glad for these two witnesses who, by their art, show me a different path. And it's not passive at all. Rather, at the end of life, here's the most robust, creative encounter with the forces of death I can imagine.

I leave these two visits blessed and mumbling to myself, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15.55).

I hope I'll practice this sacred art . . . when the time comes.

Leadership models from the 4th century

From my journals.  Monday, May 21, 2007 St. Macarius Monastery, Wadi Natrun, Egypt

Merton writes that we won't find the likes of the desert fathers and mothers today---not even in Skete. What the fathers did had not been done before. With them "you have the characteristic of a clean break with a conventional, accepted social context in order to swim for one's life into an apparently irrational void."

The examples and sayings of the Desert Fathers have become themselves conventional stereotypes, models for the accepted social context of monasticism which is no longer shocking.

"We are no longer able to notice their fabulous originality," writes Merton. "We cannot do exactly what they did. But we must be as thorough and as ruthless in our determination to break all spiritual chains, and cast off the domination of alien compulsions, to find our true selves, to discover and develop our inalienable spiritual liberty and use it to build, on earth, the Kingdom of God. We need to learn from these men of the fourth century how to ignore prejudice, defy compulsion, and strike out fearlessly into the unknown."

How to become wise

From my journals.  Sunday, May 20, 2007 St. Macarius Monastery.  Wadi Natrun, Egypt

Father Zeno and I spoke for quite a while tonight. I asked him about the path to wisdom.

"Remember that you are nothing," he said. "And remember that you are everything---bought as precious by Christ. And if you're everything, so are others; you are to love them, embrace them. You will find yourself in them, and you will find them in you. Love is the path to wisdom. When you are nothing, you have nothing and need nothing and you are free to live in love."