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.