More on Suffering…

"Human suffering threatens all networks of meaning."

Bible Preaching on the Death of Jesus by William A. Beardslee et al.

Good old American know-how is a beautiful thing. But when we think our know-how should make us capable of out-running suffering, we are getting too big for our britches. As I alluded to in yesterday's blog, we need to be careful with how we define suffering.

We can turn pain into suffering if we are not careful. When I act as if a delayed shipment on a piece of eye candy furniture is a suffering, I'm perpetuating a myth. That is not suffering. But my whining and complaining causes me (and others who have to listen) suffering.

Simone Weil and others have written about their perspectives on suffering. Here is the gist of what I am learning from others, people who do not think waiting for a piece of furniture in a pandemic is a suffering because they actually know what suffering is all about.

Our faith does not and was not intended to alleviate suffering. There is not magic cure. There is no special way to believe that short circuits pain and suffering. According to Weil, our faith makes good use of our suffering.

She explains it something like this. Like Job, when we are able to continue to love God even when life is not good, that is a big deal. When we can love God in the midst of legitimate suffering - as a result of the limits of human living and its pain, grief, death and injustice for many - then we can turn our suffering into something that might benefit someone else.

I'm not suggesting we sign up for suffering. No, my friends, this is not necessary. Suffering will find us. But when it does, the question will be this, eventually, maybe years down the road: how does this suffering shape us? Are we more humane? Does our humanity reflect more the God who we have managed to love even when he does not meet our expectations and - gasp - demands?