The problem of pain is not in its logic. It only defeats false
Gods, or Gods unconstrained by the realities of the nature we live
daily.
The problem of pain is in the gut wrenching
sadness of watching a parent lose a child and thinking of your own
precious children. Of watching a man or woman lose the love of their
life. Of watching families uprooted, homeless and cast upon the whims of
unwilling strangers, thinking of the time you were jobless, homeless,
and on the road with two kids, whatever stuff you could fit in a sedan,
and only safe because of the luck of belonging to a family able to help.
Of visiting your neighbor and smiling and talking like good neighbors
do, but noticing empty cupboards in their tiny, broken, rented home,
knowing your kids--who may be limited in where they go to college by
what scholarships they can get--will be going to college (or its future counterpart), but who knows
where these childhood friends will go from this tiny town with one in
six adults unemployed. Of walking by the friendly old man who is always
out giving candy to kids on Halloween, with a smile and happy words, and
seeing his perpetual rummage sale--and realizing how poor many of your
neighbors must be for his to be even a marginal business--selling stuff
you wouldn't even donate to a second hand store or give to a friend.
That
is the problem of pain. When I don't shut it down or blame it on
somebody so I can pretend it's fair, or at least deserved, I see it for
what it is. It is evil. It hurts. It hurts even when it doesn't hurt us.
We hurt and we rage at injustice. At an unjust universe. At an unjust
God. Yeah, even the Gods that might be real. They aren't stopping the
pain. They aren't fixing the problems. Even if they might fix them
later--balancing out all that wrong on some imagined scale of eternal
justice--that doesn't do squat for here and now. What's unrighteous
about that anger? Anger at big, powerful people, comfortable in their
positions, with enough resources to fix things if they cared enough? You
want to know how I'll react if you tell me that anger's unrighteous?
Probably you don't, but I probably wouldn't react much. Everybody says
dumb things. It's a pain, but usually not much. I've survived worse.
But
when my heart hurts, when I see happy kids with deprived futures, when I
see kind, uncomplaining people with no hope or purpose but to get by
until they die, when I feel irreparable loss--big or small--sometimes I
either cry or scream, or both. Maybe not on the outside, but maybe so.
And it doesn't matter that our Heavenly Parents have an answer.
Especially not since that answer seems to be that the universe is unjust
and uncaring--even the one they live in. It's just pain. There is no
fix. There is no right answer.
One thing that makes it
better for me? We cry together. We scream and rage against that pain
together, and we say NO! NO PAIN HERE! NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY
ABOUT IT! And sometimes we do have a say, so we do something. But sometimes we
don't, so we still scream. We still cry. And we love each other, because
that's all we can do. We create that out of the uncaring universe.
Maybe we have to live forever with the problem of pain. Whatever
explanation we give, it's still pain. But every loving being we make in
this universe--as parents here, or as Parents hereafter--makes the
universe care that much more.
Image Credit:
Wellcome Trust
