I feel I must contribute one of my favorite poems given that it is national poetry month.
This is from W.H. Auden, one of my favorite poets, perhaps because he always seems to tell the truth of what he is feeling or believing.
From "Friday's Child", a poem about the existence of God and the significance of Good Friday, and a tribute to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an excerpt:
Since the analogies are rot
Our senses based belief upon,
We have no means of learning what
Is really going on,
And must put up with having learned
All proofs or disproofs that we tender
Of His existence are returned
Unopened to the sender.
Now, did He really break the seal
And rise again? We dare not say;
But conscious unbelievers feel
Quite sure of Judgement Day.
Meanwhile, a silence on the cross,
As dead as we shall ever be,
Speaks of some total gain or loss,
And you and I are free
To guess from the insulted face
Just what Appearances He saves
By suffering in a public place
A death reserved for slaves.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Getting Ready to Die
Now it might seem pessimistic to begin a post about marriage with such a title, but I've been reminded much lately of the way in which any new beginning also requires dying. Perhaps this post will shed some light on Hunter's previous inquiry, perhaps not.
I'm sitting at our kitchen table in our apartment, an apartment I share with three other guys who are all involved in Cru. Interestingly enough, this will also be Christy and I's kitchen table as well. It is one of the holdovers from my present life that will make its way into our new, combined life. There are, however, many things that won't survive that transition--and thus the title.
Any new beginning requires dying. The bachelor Kyle, who would balance ministry, friends, and hours playing Final Fantasy XIII on XBox will be no more. The Kyle who would go off to Panera for six hours a day to read and write will have to die--or at least suffer a lot of injury. And the Kyle who, with deeper and darker thoughts, dreamed of other lives, will put them to rest as he chooses one specific path.
How did I get here? How did I arrive at this decision? Surely it was providence and grace. And just as surely I made a decision nine months ago based on endorphins and physiological cues that propelled me to think that this might be the best decision for me. But ultimately I am walking this path because as it says in Jeremiah 6:16, I stand at the crossroads and look, and seeing two paths, must choose between that which God has for me and that which he does not. I must walk in the way everlasting, for it is only there that true joy is found. And it is the way of joy. Pain too. But joy everlasting.
And so I put to death the old Kyle, in all his independence and selfishness. Surely it will rise again and need to be killed again. But for now it is being laid in the coffin.
I'll end with some lyrics from a forthcoming Andrew Peterson song:
Well "I do" are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end.
But to lose your life for another I've heard
Is a good place to begin.
Cause the only way to find your life
Is to lay your own life down.
And I believe its an easy price
For the life that we have found.
And we went dancing in the minefields,
We went sailing in the storms,
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that what the promise is for.
I'm sitting at our kitchen table in our apartment, an apartment I share with three other guys who are all involved in Cru. Interestingly enough, this will also be Christy and I's kitchen table as well. It is one of the holdovers from my present life that will make its way into our new, combined life. There are, however, many things that won't survive that transition--and thus the title.
Any new beginning requires dying. The bachelor Kyle, who would balance ministry, friends, and hours playing Final Fantasy XIII on XBox will be no more. The Kyle who would go off to Panera for six hours a day to read and write will have to die--or at least suffer a lot of injury. And the Kyle who, with deeper and darker thoughts, dreamed of other lives, will put them to rest as he chooses one specific path.
How did I get here? How did I arrive at this decision? Surely it was providence and grace. And just as surely I made a decision nine months ago based on endorphins and physiological cues that propelled me to think that this might be the best decision for me. But ultimately I am walking this path because as it says in Jeremiah 6:16, I stand at the crossroads and look, and seeing two paths, must choose between that which God has for me and that which he does not. I must walk in the way everlasting, for it is only there that true joy is found. And it is the way of joy. Pain too. But joy everlasting.
And so I put to death the old Kyle, in all his independence and selfishness. Surely it will rise again and need to be killed again. But for now it is being laid in the coffin.
I'll end with some lyrics from a forthcoming Andrew Peterson song:
Well "I do" are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end.
But to lose your life for another I've heard
Is a good place to begin.
Cause the only way to find your life
Is to lay your own life down.
And I believe its an easy price
For the life that we have found.
And we went dancing in the minefields,
We went sailing in the storms,
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that what the promise is for.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Following a Stream
As I reflect on my blog posts from the last 12+ months, I realize that I have basically posted the same thing over and over again.... and as I contemplate another blog post, I realize that it is going to be the same thing again... so if I have bored you enough already you are certainly under no obligation to continue reading.
For some time now I have been stuck on the philosophical/existential puzzle of free will versus fate, or as I would call it, God's providence.
Does anyone else ever get the feeling like you aren't actually making decisions... that your life is planned out for you and while in the moment you may feel like you are faced with numerous options, however when you break it down, your hand has been forced. I've just had that overwhelming feeling lately, and I found it kind of strange. I've spent much of the past 9 months in Raleigh second guessing the few life decisions that I have made so far, but now all of a sudden I again feel like there was no decision. Finding myself in this position is simply a product of my past, my upbringing, the environment I was raised in, the company that I kept....
I'd be really interested to hear from the two of you that will be getting married soon, and how you have come to make this very important life decision. (I realize that a public blog is probably not the best place for those thoughts, and I'm not encouraging you to post that on this blog, but maybe in the form of an email or something, I would love to hear your perspective on decision making).
Or maybe yall are getting sick of me repeatedly posting the same thing...
I'll leave you with this treat. I recently subscribed to the New Yorker magazine, and found the following poem from this week's issue to be especially enjoyable:
"Don't do it, the guidebook says,
if you're lost. Then it goes on
to talk about something else,
taking the easy way out,
which of course is what water does
as a matter of course always
taking whatever turn
the earth has told it to
while and since it was born,
including flowing over
the edge of a waterfall
or simply disappearing
underground for a long dark time
before it reappears
as a spring so far away
from where you thought you were
and where you think you are
it might never occur
to you to imagine where
that could be as you go downhill."
Following a Stream, by David Wagoner
For some time now I have been stuck on the philosophical/existential puzzle of free will versus fate, or as I would call it, God's providence.
Does anyone else ever get the feeling like you aren't actually making decisions... that your life is planned out for you and while in the moment you may feel like you are faced with numerous options, however when you break it down, your hand has been forced. I've just had that overwhelming feeling lately, and I found it kind of strange. I've spent much of the past 9 months in Raleigh second guessing the few life decisions that I have made so far, but now all of a sudden I again feel like there was no decision. Finding myself in this position is simply a product of my past, my upbringing, the environment I was raised in, the company that I kept....
I'd be really interested to hear from the two of you that will be getting married soon, and how you have come to make this very important life decision. (I realize that a public blog is probably not the best place for those thoughts, and I'm not encouraging you to post that on this blog, but maybe in the form of an email or something, I would love to hear your perspective on decision making).
Or maybe yall are getting sick of me repeatedly posting the same thing...
I'll leave you with this treat. I recently subscribed to the New Yorker magazine, and found the following poem from this week's issue to be especially enjoyable:
"Don't do it, the guidebook says,
if you're lost. Then it goes on
to talk about something else,
taking the easy way out,
which of course is what water does
as a matter of course always
taking whatever turn
the earth has told it to
while and since it was born,
including flowing over
the edge of a waterfall
or simply disappearing
underground for a long dark time
before it reappears
as a spring so far away
from where you thought you were
and where you think you are
it might never occur
to you to imagine where
that could be as you go downhill."
Following a Stream, by David Wagoner
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Al Pie Desde Su Nino
Travis will appreciate this one, and I'll post the translation as well. I just really like this poem. It reminds me a lot of that passage in scripture that talks about Christians as different parts of the body. It is easy to be jealous of other parts of the body. I can relate with the foot in this poem, sometimes I also wish I were an apple or a butterfly. I have my thoughts, interpretations, and opinions of this poem, but it is probably better to let it speak for itself.
El pie del niño aún no sabe que es pie,
y quiere ser mariposa o manzana.
Pero luego los vidrios y las piedras,
las calles, las escaleras,
y los caminos de la tierra dura
van enseñando al pie que no puede volar,
que no puede ser fruto redondo en una rama.
El pie del niño entonces
fue derrotado, cayó
en la batalla,
fue prisionero,
condenado a vivir en un zapato.
Poco a poco sin luz
fue conociendo el mundo a su manera,
sin conocer el otro pie, encerrado,
explorando la vida como un ciego.
Aquellas suaves uñas
de cuarzo, de racimo,
se endurecieron, se mudaron
en opaca substancia, en cuerno duro,
y los pequeños pétalos del niño
se aplastaron, se desequilibraron,
tomaron formas de reptil sin ojos,
cabezas triangulares de gusano.
Y luego encallecieron,
se cubrieron
con mínimos volcanes de la muerte,
inaceptables endurecimientos.
Pero este ciego anduvo
sin tregua, sin parar
hora tras hora,
el pie y el otro pie,
ahora de hombre
o de mujer,
arriba,
abajo,
por los campos, las minas,
los almacenes y los ministerios,
atrás,
afuera, adentro,
adelante,
este pie trabajó con su zapato,
apenas tuvo tiempo
de estar desnudo en el amor o el sueño,
caminó, caminaron
hasta que el hombre entero se detuvo.
Y entonces a la tierra
bajó y no supo nada,
porque allí todo y todo estaba oscuro,
no supo que había dejado de ser pie,
si lo enterraban para que volara
o para que pudiera
ser manzana.
To the Foot from it's Child
The child's foot still doesn't know it's a foot,
it wants to be a butterfly or apple.
Later, the stones, bits and pieces of glass,
streets, stairways,
the packed earth of the road,
go on teaching the foot it can't fly,
can't be round as fruit on a branch.
The child's foot,
defeated, went down
in battle,
a casualty
condemned to live in a shoe.
Little by little in the dark it began
to interpret the world after its fashion,
never knowing its other foot, still enclosed,
groping for life like a blind man.
Those toe-nails, glossy
as quartz, in a cluster,
hardened over, assumed
matter's opacity; tough as horn,
the child's little petals
flattened out, shifted their balance,
took the eyeless form of a reptile,
the triangular head of a worm.
They grew calluses,
covered themselves
with death's littlest volcanoes,
unwanted fossilization.
But the blind thing trudged on
without stopping or flinching,
hour after hour,
one foot after the other foot,
now a man's,
now a woman's,
above
or below,
crossing meadows and mines,
warehouses, offices -
forward and
back, inside
or ahead of itself,
the foot worked with its shoe,
hardly had time
to strip down for loving or sleeping,
it walked, they kept walking,
till the whole man dropped in his tracks.
Then it crawled
under the earth and knew nothing more,
since all things, all possible things, are shadowy there.
It never knew it had stopped being a foot - whether
they had buried it to teach it to fly,
or because one day it might
turn into an apple.
by Pablo Neruda
El pie del niño aún no sabe que es pie,
y quiere ser mariposa o manzana.
Pero luego los vidrios y las piedras,
las calles, las escaleras,
y los caminos de la tierra dura
van enseñando al pie que no puede volar,
que no puede ser fruto redondo en una rama.
El pie del niño entonces
fue derrotado, cayó
en la batalla,
fue prisionero,
condenado a vivir en un zapato.
Poco a poco sin luz
fue conociendo el mundo a su manera,
sin conocer el otro pie, encerrado,
explorando la vida como un ciego.
Aquellas suaves uñas
de cuarzo, de racimo,
se endurecieron, se mudaron
en opaca substancia, en cuerno duro,
y los pequeños pétalos del niño
se aplastaron, se desequilibraron,
tomaron formas de reptil sin ojos,
cabezas triangulares de gusano.
Y luego encallecieron,
se cubrieron
con mínimos volcanes de la muerte,
inaceptables endurecimientos.
Pero este ciego anduvo
sin tregua, sin parar
hora tras hora,
el pie y el otro pie,
ahora de hombre
o de mujer,
arriba,
abajo,
por los campos, las minas,
los almacenes y los ministerios,
atrás,
afuera, adentro,
adelante,
este pie trabajó con su zapato,
apenas tuvo tiempo
de estar desnudo en el amor o el sueño,
caminó, caminaron
hasta que el hombre entero se detuvo.
Y entonces a la tierra
bajó y no supo nada,
porque allí todo y todo estaba oscuro,
no supo que había dejado de ser pie,
si lo enterraban para que volara
o para que pudiera
ser manzana.
To the Foot from it's Child
The child's foot still doesn't know it's a foot,
it wants to be a butterfly or apple.
Later, the stones, bits and pieces of glass,
streets, stairways,
the packed earth of the road,
go on teaching the foot it can't fly,
can't be round as fruit on a branch.
The child's foot,
defeated, went down
in battle,
a casualty
condemned to live in a shoe.
Little by little in the dark it began
to interpret the world after its fashion,
never knowing its other foot, still enclosed,
groping for life like a blind man.
Those toe-nails, glossy
as quartz, in a cluster,
hardened over, assumed
matter's opacity; tough as horn,
the child's little petals
flattened out, shifted their balance,
took the eyeless form of a reptile,
the triangular head of a worm.
They grew calluses,
covered themselves
with death's littlest volcanoes,
unwanted fossilization.
But the blind thing trudged on
without stopping or flinching,
hour after hour,
one foot after the other foot,
now a man's,
now a woman's,
above
or below,
crossing meadows and mines,
warehouses, offices -
forward and
back, inside
or ahead of itself,
the foot worked with its shoe,
hardly had time
to strip down for loving or sleeping,
it walked, they kept walking,
till the whole man dropped in his tracks.
Then it crawled
under the earth and knew nothing more,
since all things, all possible things, are shadowy there.
It never knew it had stopped being a foot - whether
they had buried it to teach it to fly,
or because one day it might
turn into an apple.
by Pablo Neruda
Thursday, April 8, 2010
A Little Madness in the Spring
Here are a few more spring/April poems to celebrate spring, April, and National Poetry Month. I have posted this first one on here before, but I love thinking about regeneration as I see the earth "being regenerated" in the spring. The first two poems are by Emily Dickinson and the last one is by Gerard Manley Hopkins
An altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere;
An axe shrill singing in the woods;
Fern-odors on untraveled roads,-
All this, and more I cannot tell,
A furtive look you know as well,
And Nicodemus' mystery
Receives its annual reply.
Here's another short one about spring:
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown,
Who ponders this tremendous scene-
This whole experiment of green,
As if it were his own!
And lastly not necessarily a spring poem, but I think fitting for spring time.
Glory be to God for dappled things-
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
An altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere;
An axe shrill singing in the woods;
Fern-odors on untraveled roads,-
All this, and more I cannot tell,
A furtive look you know as well,
And Nicodemus' mystery
Receives its annual reply.
Here's another short one about spring:
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown,
Who ponders this tremendous scene-
This whole experiment of green,
As if it were his own!
And lastly not necessarily a spring poem, but I think fitting for spring time.
Glory be to God for dappled things-
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
National Poetry Month
In light of the fine poetry that has been shared here I feel it my duty to pass along a verse or two that has touched my life.
This is the one and only poem that my father made me memorize as a child and it is only now that I have begin to treasure it. To offer a little background, the poem was written in light of a brigade of British Cavalry that attempted a fatal charge during the crimean war. The most intriguing fact about the whole poem is the fact that all the men knew that some mistake had been made, for to attempt this charge meant certain death. It makes me ponder what we value in our culture. Self aggrandizement and a general lack of selflessness pervade our society and this poem makes ideas and lofty ethical ideas simmer in my minds eye.
Anyway, I encourage you to read it.
Half a league, half a league, "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Cannon to right of them, Flash'd all their sabres bare, Cannon to right of them, When can their glory fade? |
Half a league onward,Copied from Poems of Alfred Tennyson,
J. E. Tilton and Company, Boston, 1870
Monday, April 5, 2010
Can trouble live with April days?
I don’t know how you guys feel about the month of April, but I feel as though it is always the most tumultuous and unpredictable month of the year. While it may seem as though I am referring to the weather patterns, the unstable jet stream pulsing an alternating pattern of artic Canadian air, and warm, humid Gulf of Mexico air across the middle of our nation, causing tornadoes to rip across the plains, melting snow and flooding towns, and then giving some of the most breathtakingly beautiful days of the year. I think for whatever reason the tumultuous nature of the month of April is not simply limited to the weather. As I reflect on April’s past and I look to see what this April will hold I see a lot of raw emotion. I am not the first one to pick up on this, and I must credit the poets in further helping me realize the emotion of the month of April. April has been declared National Poetry Month by the Academy of American Poets, and so accordingly I would like to share some of my favorite April (or spring poems). I would encourage you to do the same, and hopefully this could broaden all of our horizons, as you will see many of my poems will come from two of the poets that first showed me the beauty of poetry Tennyson and Dickinson. I highly recommend checking out the works of both of these poets, but would caution against reading too much Dickinson before going to bed….
I’ll just share a few lines about spring/April, and hopefully we can enjoy some more throughout the cruel month of Aprl:
“APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”
Taken from "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot
“Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last – far off – at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.”
“Dip down upon the northern shore,
O sweet new-year delaying long;
Thou doest expectant nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.
What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?”
“Is it, then regret for buried time
That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
And meets the year, and gives and takes
The colours of the crescent prime?
Not all: the songs, the stirring air,
The life re-orient out of dust,
Cry through the sense to hearten trust
In that which made the world so fair.”
Taken from "In Memoriam A.H.H." by Lord Alfred Tennyson
I’ll just share a few lines about spring/April, and hopefully we can enjoy some more throughout the cruel month of Aprl:
“APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”
Taken from "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot
“Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last – far off – at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.”
“Dip down upon the northern shore,
O sweet new-year delaying long;
Thou doest expectant nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.
What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?”
“Is it, then regret for buried time
That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
And meets the year, and gives and takes
The colours of the crescent prime?
Not all: the songs, the stirring air,
The life re-orient out of dust,
Cry through the sense to hearten trust
In that which made the world so fair.”
Taken from "In Memoriam A.H.H." by Lord Alfred Tennyson
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Never morning wore to evening, but some heart did break
Alright, I’m going to jump around a bit here, and maybe if we are lucky there will be some kind of conclusion at the end.
I have been thinking about suffering, the depravity of man, and the fallenness of this world a lot lately. If you stop and look around it is hard to avoid these depressing topics. I still can’t get some of the images of the earthquake in Haiti that I have seen in the news out of my head…the mothers sobbing over the pictures of their lost children, the children without parents, and the bulldozer that is literally burying hundreds of unidentified bodies. It is so tragic.
As you can imagine I have also been fixated with the earthquake in Chile. Seeing houses floating out to sea in the town where I spent a weekend retreat, or seeing looters ransacking the one supermarket where I would go to get my peanut butter fix. It is heartbreaking to see the interviews of the people living right on the coast that literally lost all of their earthly possessions, and many of them losing their families.
Three of the last movies I’ve seen [SPOILER ALERT!!!!], Cidade de Deus (City of God), Machuca, and Sin Nombre all showed either the brutal death of children or some sort of utterly depressing circumstance, and gave brutally honest examples of life in this fallen world. By the way, I highly recommend these movies; they are probably some of the best movies I have seen in awhile, and they aren’t just depressing movies… I think there is a lot to be learned from them.
This list could go on and on, but we’ll stop it at that.
I’ve had a hard time (as I think most all humans do) with considering evil in the world. By the grace of God I have not experienced any of these horrific tragedies, but you don’t need to look too far to realize that these kinds of sufferings are very common place in this world. I’m not going to try to give a complete answer to the problem of evil, but I’d like to point out something that Fyodor Doestoevsky illustrates in his book Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a master of delving into the depths of human depravity, suffering, and despair, but I also see in his writing a tremendous faith in God, and if I might be so bold to also say, a tremendous faith in the power of Jesus Christ to overcome the depravity and suffering of the world.
The scene I wish to describe to you is a conversation that takes place between Sonia and Raskolnikov. Sonia is a girl that is forced into prostitution to support her family and her drunken father who takes money from her mom and her younger siblings to accommodate his drinking binges. I can’t do the scene justice, so I would highly recommend reading it on your own sometime. But in the scene Raskolnikov has Sonia read the story of Lazarus, and because of the events and the circumstances in the story, it really hit me that the story of Lazarus goes a long way in explaining the problem of evil, or at least in addressing it. Now I realize that I might be reading into the story of Lazarus a little too much, but this thought has stuck with me ever since I read Crime and Punishment. The following is definitely not any kind of Biblical exegesis, rather it is my musings on this powerful passage. The story is taken from John 11:1-45. Sonia reads verses 17 – 45 (she may cut out a few verses). The thing that struck me the most is Mary and Martha’s question to Jesus. They both (at separate times) say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” I see this as the question of the problem of evil… Sonia saying, “Lord, if you had been here, I would not have to prostitute myself to feed my starving siblings.” It is interesting to see how Jesus responds. I don’t know what to make of this, so maybe some of you could help me out, and I will try to look into this more on my own too. Martha also says to Jesus, “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” And Jesus replies by saying “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” So I think I can understand this. Jesus is saying that even through all this suffering, even through the death of her brother, the more important thing is that Jesus has power over death. He is the resurrection and the life. Awesome!
Now Jesus responds differently to Mary, but she also approaches him slightly differently.
Mary does not end her statement to Jesus with any statement of her believing that even though her brother has died, whatever Jesus asks from God, God will give him, and Jesus does not explicitly affirm her that he is the resurrection and the life, rather he weeps. Now I have heard very smart, very godly people say that he is weeping because they are not believing in him, they don’t understand who he is, why he came, but I don’t know if it is that simple…(not that that is simple). I mean what was Jesus’ larger response to suffering? He became a human and took on the most suffering imaginable in not only dying on a cross as a completely innocent person, but having the wrath of God poured out on him for the world’s sins. So He can completely sympathize with humanity in any suffering that they encounter. So I just think about his weeping over Lazarus’ death and his weeping over Mary and the other Jew’s response and wonder if this isn’t also an expression of his compassion, sympathy, and empathy for the suffering of humanity. And it’s interesting to see the Jew’s response to his weeping. Some are amazed, “See how he loved them”, and others are skeptical “could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Or to put it in another way, “if there is an all-powerful and loving God, then why does evil exists”. They are asking about the problem of evil…. Which I think the answer to the problem of evil is tied up in both of Jesus’ responses. “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…” and Jesus weeping for the pain, the loss, the suffering that is common place in the human race.
And since April is the national poetry month, I will end this altogether too long of a blog post with a few stanzas from one of my favorite poems, “Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.”
I have been thinking about suffering, the depravity of man, and the fallenness of this world a lot lately. If you stop and look around it is hard to avoid these depressing topics. I still can’t get some of the images of the earthquake in Haiti that I have seen in the news out of my head…the mothers sobbing over the pictures of their lost children, the children without parents, and the bulldozer that is literally burying hundreds of unidentified bodies. It is so tragic.
As you can imagine I have also been fixated with the earthquake in Chile. Seeing houses floating out to sea in the town where I spent a weekend retreat, or seeing looters ransacking the one supermarket where I would go to get my peanut butter fix. It is heartbreaking to see the interviews of the people living right on the coast that literally lost all of their earthly possessions, and many of them losing their families.
Three of the last movies I’ve seen [SPOILER ALERT!!!!], Cidade de Deus (City of God), Machuca, and Sin Nombre all showed either the brutal death of children or some sort of utterly depressing circumstance, and gave brutally honest examples of life in this fallen world. By the way, I highly recommend these movies; they are probably some of the best movies I have seen in awhile, and they aren’t just depressing movies… I think there is a lot to be learned from them.
This list could go on and on, but we’ll stop it at that.
I’ve had a hard time (as I think most all humans do) with considering evil in the world. By the grace of God I have not experienced any of these horrific tragedies, but you don’t need to look too far to realize that these kinds of sufferings are very common place in this world. I’m not going to try to give a complete answer to the problem of evil, but I’d like to point out something that Fyodor Doestoevsky illustrates in his book Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a master of delving into the depths of human depravity, suffering, and despair, but I also see in his writing a tremendous faith in God, and if I might be so bold to also say, a tremendous faith in the power of Jesus Christ to overcome the depravity and suffering of the world.
The scene I wish to describe to you is a conversation that takes place between Sonia and Raskolnikov. Sonia is a girl that is forced into prostitution to support her family and her drunken father who takes money from her mom and her younger siblings to accommodate his drinking binges. I can’t do the scene justice, so I would highly recommend reading it on your own sometime. But in the scene Raskolnikov has Sonia read the story of Lazarus, and because of the events and the circumstances in the story, it really hit me that the story of Lazarus goes a long way in explaining the problem of evil, or at least in addressing it. Now I realize that I might be reading into the story of Lazarus a little too much, but this thought has stuck with me ever since I read Crime and Punishment. The following is definitely not any kind of Biblical exegesis, rather it is my musings on this powerful passage. The story is taken from John 11:1-45. Sonia reads verses 17 – 45 (she may cut out a few verses). The thing that struck me the most is Mary and Martha’s question to Jesus. They both (at separate times) say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” I see this as the question of the problem of evil… Sonia saying, “Lord, if you had been here, I would not have to prostitute myself to feed my starving siblings.” It is interesting to see how Jesus responds. I don’t know what to make of this, so maybe some of you could help me out, and I will try to look into this more on my own too. Martha also says to Jesus, “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” And Jesus replies by saying “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” So I think I can understand this. Jesus is saying that even through all this suffering, even through the death of her brother, the more important thing is that Jesus has power over death. He is the resurrection and the life. Awesome!
Now Jesus responds differently to Mary, but she also approaches him slightly differently.
Mary does not end her statement to Jesus with any statement of her believing that even though her brother has died, whatever Jesus asks from God, God will give him, and Jesus does not explicitly affirm her that he is the resurrection and the life, rather he weeps. Now I have heard very smart, very godly people say that he is weeping because they are not believing in him, they don’t understand who he is, why he came, but I don’t know if it is that simple…(not that that is simple). I mean what was Jesus’ larger response to suffering? He became a human and took on the most suffering imaginable in not only dying on a cross as a completely innocent person, but having the wrath of God poured out on him for the world’s sins. So He can completely sympathize with humanity in any suffering that they encounter. So I just think about his weeping over Lazarus’ death and his weeping over Mary and the other Jew’s response and wonder if this isn’t also an expression of his compassion, sympathy, and empathy for the suffering of humanity. And it’s interesting to see the Jew’s response to his weeping. Some are amazed, “See how he loved them”, and others are skeptical “could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Or to put it in another way, “if there is an all-powerful and loving God, then why does evil exists”. They are asking about the problem of evil…. Which I think the answer to the problem of evil is tied up in both of Jesus’ responses. “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…” and Jesus weeping for the pain, the loss, the suffering that is common place in the human race.
And since April is the national poetry month, I will end this altogether too long of a blog post with a few stanzas from one of my favorite poems, “Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.”
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