Job and the Mystery of Suffering: Spiritual Reflections by Richard Rohr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Darkness is a harsh term, don't you think? And yet it dominates the things I see." -Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More album, 2010.

To anyone who has experienced bad difficulties or encountered suffering in life, and has not found satisfaction in the pat answers and determined joyfulness of mainstream Christianity, this study of Job may address some issues seemingly ignored by many. The fallacy of "prosperity gospel" ("...we expect something back.", p. 29) is addressed, the mistaken idea of earning our heavenly reward ("...most people believe...we are going to get back as much as we give to God...salvation depends on us and our perfection and goodness...", p. 73) is covered, and over-stressing the authority of the church and the Bible (they "...are one step removed from the inner testimony of the spirit.", p. 89) is warned against, as it may become an avoidance of the inner journey and the discovery of one's own soul.

On p. 123, there is an interesting comment about Job searching for God and not finding God anywhere, and how this contrasts with Psalm 139 ("Wherever I go, he is there," omnipresence), in my mind conjuring up an idea of God's "omni-absence" as a sometime perception of the suffering one who can feel no sign of God's nearness.

The heart of the human dilemma, I think, is touched on exquisitely as "...a human being demanding his rights as a human being...Job is asking for the gift of unconditional love when he rejects any theory of retributive justice. He is demanding a God who respects and loves what God has created--just because it is," (p. 139)
Although Job does not get a clear answer, in the end he seems satisfied "to see and be seen. That's all any of us desire. For some eyes to go through us and understand... We desire to be seen all the way through." (p. 162)
And the final touch: Job must pray for his friends. "His redemption is not complete until he prays for those who caused him such pain." (p. 164)

The author of Job and the Mystery of Suffering points to Christ's suffering as a comfort, and also allows for the existence of the chaos factor, a mystery in a world  created by a mighty God.


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The cat is still not talking.

She sits upon the windowsill,

all ears pointedly ignoring,

silently gazing into the distance,

her tail curled up around her

in a most self-sufficient way.

I ask her what I've done.

She will not turn to look,

though one ear does, then back.

All silent and unmoving,

her furred but frozen shoulder

rejects my every effort.

The clock ticks on.

The cat is still not talking...

Mar. 24
Do not seek to console me
by saying he is in a better place

and free of the miseries of this world,
then tell me I have much reason to live

by all the beauty around me,
and the ones still here and dear to me;
that exactly is why I mourn his life lost
that had so much yet to see.
(So much yet to be and love,
and loved ones to be needed.)

Apr. 14

Why does God bless me?

How is it I can call this land mine, these fields, these woods?

Why do the branches shine for me against the sun?
 

The slow melting snow

glitter-pearl bedecked

ice-lace bedraped

making walking difficult for distraction,
the glory of its beauty.

The small log cabin

where I bend down to lay and light the fire

which restores my soul.

I continue my walk,

greeted by a sunning squirrel

branch-perched

sun-furred

and then its mate springing up to join

in a warm sleepy eyed ignoring of the human intruder.

When I am unproductive here

swinging my idle hands as I walk these woods

why does God bless me

with what I do not deserve?

Later, on the way home:

Pileated Woodpecker on Poplar!

Old under trees

Let me be old under trees.

Let those long plodding days be shaded by forest friends,

swayed by the breeze let us spend our days.

Leaning toward long silent moments,

deep in remembrance,

rooted in long ago ways.

Creaking in turns,

swaying when swept by the winds of the world,

old bones brittle, old wood burns.

Branches once straight and strong,

bent, broken, twirled,

twisted in trunk,

gnarled.

With faded leaves reaching for light and warmth,

wrinkled skin bark-like and  rough.

Let us know winter is coming,

and turn ourselves inward,

the sap of thoughts slowing,

prepare for the long cold dark,

though 'round us the young trees are growing.

Young at Midnight

Because the night is beautiful

and the moon her daughter, dutiful,

beguiling pure and smiling

she draws young eyes to the dark.

When far removed is sunlight,

let all secret doings take flight

-all whispering and flittering,

all fleeting glance, and sigh.

Then come to me there waiting

beneath the willow's shading;

we trysting in the misting

meadow will walk with the night.

We'll see the stars above us,

hear them sing and know they love us,

unending is the lending

hearts each other, ever more.

Photo: Sunshine on fence and snow

Apr. 4
No interest in this life whatsoever.
But the colour of the sunset shining on the buff painted wall. See?
No interest in this world whatsoever.

But the colour of the sunrise shining on the rust painted wall. Oh!

No interest in myself whatsoever.

Oh red painted wall, the colour! And the sunlight on!

Adrift unsure, let the shine astonish.

Dark dark, let the glow illuminate.

Downcast, and the bright uplifts.

It has been a long winter. The cold, the snow storms and the icy roads of these Canadian Prairies cause cancellations and reduced social activity. Just the way I like it. Because of grief related depression, I have wanted to remain cocooned in my warm and silent house, my books and Internet games being my escape, my distraction, my time wasting method when I can't bear to face the grimness of reality.

I find outings difficult. Emotionally vulnerable, I dread facing familiar people, knowing they might ask that awful question, "how are you?", and I may have to lie or offer at best a half-truth: "I'm okay" (silently adding, "sometimes"). Or, "I'm still standing" with a chuckle, as if I'm joking, but really it's an achievement for me to still be standing after what I've been hit with.

So the coming of spring has filled me with dread. I will be confronted by the world more and more.

Among my people, the days just before Easter are a time for self-examination and reflection, a sober contemplation of the sad and spectacular story of Easter. The evening before Good Friday our church holds a communion service in memory of this God-with-us man, Jesus.

This year I have had a difficult time deciding whether I should go. All those people, whom I do care about and who I know care about me. All that eye contact, and me not emotionally strong enough to face casual social niceties. Not to mention the brain fog that has left me sometimes unable to follow the meaning of sentences, or to care about conversations. Although I think of this occasional diminished mental capacity as good training for that rapidly approaching old age.

But in spite of my current spiritual confusion, my social reluctance, my hermitic preferences, it seems that this Jesus in his own words asked us to meet together as a group in memory of his love, his life, his death. So, out of love and obedience, I go.

I stop by the grocery store in our small town and pick up a few groceries in preparation for the family meals Easter weekend, so that I arrive at church a minute after start time. No one I need to chat with, just a couple of quick words and one liner humourous comments with the easy going greeters.

I slip into a back pew beside my husband who arrived earlier. It doesn't take long before the hymn brings tears to my eyes, and that's okay. I trust everyone here enough that I'm okay with them seeing my teary or red eyes. So I go through a couple of kleenexes as the message and music bring to mind the sorrow and pathos surrounding the end of life. When the message begins, the speaker cannot stay in the death moments for even a sentence, needing to turn quickly to the relief of the coming resurrection. No, I think, stay; let's spend more time with Jesus in his horror, his fear, his pain.

Think about the God-man's deliberate and fully-aware approach to Jerusalem, the time and place of his doom, however wonderfully justified his sacrificial death will turn out to be.Think about his betrayal by friends, bad enough, but then his mental anguish as he prays for strength to keep going, knowing what is to come. Think about his extreme physical and emotional pain, combined with his abandonment by God. And the last tragic gasp for breath, with an instinctive fear of suffocation.

Now, let's contemplate how God as man CHOSE to go through this, any stage of which all of us would probably do everything within our (not at all almighty) power to avoid.

The fact that God chooses to take part in the experience of human suffering is powerful to me this year. God's life as a human did not have a happy ending. This can be a comfort to me when I cringe every time someone tells a "God is good because this good thing happened to me" story. I feel a human sorrow for the pain and dying of a human Christ. It makes more real the common horrified sorrow we each feel at the dying of a loved one. It helps that Christ knows what its like. It connects us with Christ.

I hear the good news of the resurrection, and I can rest to a certain degree in the hope of the promise to dry all tears in some mystical future existence, which we really cannot know much about. And that's okay. But I can identify with Jesus (identify with God?!) because we share the human knowledge of the horror that we all, and all that we love, must die, and thereby I find a connection to God in the sometimes sad and difficult here and now.

Two nights ago I dreamt you were a boy again

and showed to me a wound was on your foot.

We both bent down,

I doctored it, your small pain.

We saw that it would heal.

It may be in dreams you come to me as child

because I cannot face

the whole loss of you, the loss of whole you.

I go for walks alone

remembering your nearness in the dream

and weep in snow.

Encircled by a stand of many trees I stand.

I face the winter sun between the lines on either hand.

On either side stream shadow lines of blue upon the snow;

Behind, ahead the lines flow from me far as sight will go.

I face the sun-- the way ahead is bright, the lines are clear;

I turn my back-- my shadow leans with all the lines away from here

and into darkness, trunks and snow and shadow there.

Two paths to choose: ahead or back. Snow does not really care.

I fear the fragility of feeble creature memory

Doubt my own ability to hold what has been given me
Where go past days tragically when gone is all I used to be
Who can keep with surety the ones forgotten sadly.

I may yet let my mind go off in care-not cartwheels
To leave hold let go boldly surrender to unknow
Isn't giving up like giving in to end is like begin again
To sink into infinity, the full face of divinity.