Theodicy

Several images/experiences have haunted me the last few months.

David getting off the phone in the middle of the night and saying "Midi's gone"... stroking Nathan's face and talking to him before he died...watching him later die in Mark's arms... going back to the Mikasas' home with David and putting away the laundry and dishes that had been left around when they had gone out to the family gathering they had been at... picking out an outfit for Midi with her mother... finding the locket that had the twins' pictures in it for Midi to wear... the stench of all the flowers at the funeral home and how unlike herself Midi's body was... how small Nathan looked in his coffin... talking to one of the sheriffs who had responded to the accident and finding out that Midi had been pushed into Mark's lap by the truck that had crashed into them... the way Midi's mother hugs me and starts to cry whenever we see each other...

At times all these memories seem too much to bear. But the last few weeks, with the enormity of all the calamities happening in Asia, I have been reminded that my suffering, while great, is certainly not the worst it could be. I'm not sure how useful it is to compare. Jerry Sittser in his book A Grace Disguised questions whether loss should be quantified or compared at all. "Loss is loss, whatever the circumstances," he says. "All losses are bad, only bad in different ways...Each loss stands on its own and inflicts a unique kind of pain."

That being said, it is helpful for me to remember that the horrors I've experienced recently aren't unique, really. There is an appropriate humility of recognizing that I'm not special in my suffering. We live in a broken world, and many of us are suffering from the evil in it, whether it be of human origin or so-called "natural" disasters.

In my seminary class on grief today, we looked at "theodicy", the branch of theology that tries to reconcile God's goodness, omnipotence and the presence of evil in the world. A lot of the discussion and theories seemed too theoretical or pat to me. But some of the material seemed to contain some wisdom, particularly that which argued against a "tidy answer" to the problem of suffering. And the take on theodicy that resonates the most to me in the midst of my own pain really is Jesus as the suffering servant. "Suffering is in the nature of God who participates in the pain, anguish, and travail of a suffering creation and of each creature. We do not know why, but we can know (He) who stands with us in our pain." Amen. I can't escape my own horrors, nor can I make total sense of anybody else's, but I can experience the compassion of savior who suffered as well.

In my head

I hadn't thought I was angry with God these last few months. While I certainly can't even pretend to understand why this has all happened, I have felt fairly strong in my belief that despite my finite understanding and the horror of it all, God is still good. I felt solid enough in my faith and have had enough years under my belt of experiencing the goodness of God to not feel fundamentally shaken in my trust of God by the loss of Midi and Nathan.

But I've realized that anger, despair, and the questioning of God are still there for me. Those things exist on a layer that's pretty submerged for me, and therefore not what I'm aware of on a daily basis. But they are there nonetheless. I think it's that layer that surfaces for me during communion. Something about connecting with God as I contemplate the way He has suffered with and for mankind allows my despair and faith co-exist for a while. In communion I can ask God why He would take soulmate like Midi away from me and at the same trust Him to be my confort in the midst of that anguish.

The other factor keeping that layer submerged is that I am far more comfortable dealing with all of this with my head than my heart. Analysis, reflection, doing something with my grief... that I can handle. Simply mourning all the time, staying in touch with the sense of desolation I feel from losing Midi on a constant basis, those things I can only seem to manage on a every-so-often basis. Someone pointed out to me this last week that not everyone in the midst of intense mourning would take a seminary class on grief and dying. Perhaps that should have been obvious to me, but it caught me off-guard. It revealed more to me how much I'm "in my head" about all of this.

I'm not sure I could change that about myself even if I wanted to, which I don't really. But I do want to try to give that submerged layer in my heart a few more outlets than simply a once-a-week-during-communion coming up for air.

A good weekend

I turned 35 yesterday, and there were several low-key birthday things planned for this last weekend. The highlight definitely was Saturday. Instead of a birthday present, I asked David and the kids to take me to Huntington Gardens in Pasadena and to the Tea Room there. The kids had never been, and having a 5 and almost 3 year-old make through a high tea was somewhat of a dicey proposition. But we had a great time. The weather was gorgeous, the kids loved the gardens (especially the koi and some ducklings that were running around), it was much more restful than our usual excursions with the kids since we would sit down and just look at the flowers from time to time, and much to my delight, tea was a big hit and was fuss-free. This particular tea room happened to be set up buffet-style, so getting to pick out multiple desserts went over really well with the younger contingent. The only rough part was the art museum (Huntington Gardens also has a library with things like a Guttenberg Bible in it, and a small selection of art, including the "Pinkie" and "Blue Boy" paintings, for the uninitiated.). Soren had a hard time with the "no touching" rule and, immediately after we left the building, asked if we were allowed to talk now. But overall, we all had a great time there, which made for a delightful excursion.

Between that and a nice dinner at my mother-in-law's, it was a nice birthday weekend. But what made it particularly good for me was that it wasn't completely divorced from the other things in my life that are more difficult right now. We spent Friday night at Mark's house, and went to Lucas' T-ball game on Saturday before going to the gardens. I think it would have been harder for me to enjoy the weekend as much if it had not included the reality of loss on some level. It's probably the most at peace I've felt in a long while, which was both odd and nice simultaneously. But what kept it from feeling escapist or schizophrenic was spending the night at Midi's house and watching her son trot around a baseball field with a bunch of other 4 year-olds with her mother and in-laws.

I don't think I'm getting to a point of things feeling better all the time yet, but I'm grateful for this glimpse of how life might begin to reorganize, including both the hard and the good in the future.