The irony of this condition is that she is simultaneously experiencing near complete paralysis and bouts of excruciating pain. There is no reason anyone should ever have to go through this. We wait for Easter, but we feel stuck in the irrational pain of a perpetual Good Friday.
A good friend responded to me the other day, and commented on how I could think theologically in an experience like this. I must admit that for the first week or so I couldn't think at all. I felt angry, confused, powerless, hopeless, loved and supported all at the same time. As it turns out, when I began to think again, these theological frameworks are the only categories that make sense to me. Truth is, these stories and sacraments of the Christian faith are the narratives and gestures of truthfulness that have helped me to consider all that has been happening over the past three weeks.
I think sometimes when people start thinking about the problem of pain and suffering they get the idea that in the face of such an injustice faith must either be abandoned (what kind of God would let this happen?) or they think becomes some sort of a crutch that doesn't explain anything, but provides a few gentle platitudes to sooth the injured soul. I think that both of these approaches are categorical errors. It could easily be either, but in the end it is neither.
While I've been reluctant to draw comparisons, I've been thinking a lot about Job these past three weeks. I write the following words with the caveat that I could write a year's worth of meditations on Job without ever covering the whole story. I've been thinking mostly about two things and so you'll have to forgive all the omissions. The first thing is, perhaps, self-evident upon reading the story. The majority of Job's suffering came from watching those he loved suffer and die. Sure there were the afflictions to his own body, but a great deal of his torment was the fact that he was powerless to stop the suffering of his family.
I feel absolutely powerless while I sit by Emily's bed and hold her hand.
The second thing about Job's story that interests me is that he's not alone in his suffering. A group of Job's friends shows up to try to "help" him through his suffering. You might think this would be a good thing. People can't help themselves, and so initially they try to help him figure out why he's suffering. After surmising that his suffering is a result of some secret sin, they settle on the fact that God must be trying to teach him a lesson. Understandably this is not helpful to Job. He listens to them as they try in vain to make some sense out of his suffering. They offer him all the standard "God" answers, but his situation is not the standard situation.
This idea of "redemptive suffering" is theologically complex, and I can't possibly do it justice here, but basically it's the notion that God chooses to make pain a part of existence so that it makes us stronger (on the off chance that it does not kill us). This idea rings falsely in Job's ears, because Job is a man of God, and this is not the God Job knows. Even the argument that somehow God will somehow use this suffering for good seems unsatisfying to him. Job gets angry and yells at God for a bit, and after a while God answers.
I'm not sure I'm ready for the answers yet, but I am happy that Job has the chance to have his say. I feel like through these short notes perhaps I have been allowed to have my say.
I think that it's worth noting that even when Job becomes angry at God he remains faithful. I still have faith in the God of grace who loves, heals and makes whole. I do not doubt that God can sustain Emily and I through this adversity, and in the end help us to grow from the struggle, but to think that God plans this sort of thing is unbearable - that is not the God I know.
I do not believe in fate. I believe in a world of free will and infinite possibility. In such a world there will inevitably be pain and senseless suffering. I write these words between Good Friday and Easter, but most of you will read them with Easter trumpets ringing in your ears. This event that we have celebrated over these last days is God's answer to suffering. Humans suffer, but the God I know suffered and died on a cross, and so he must know something of suffering as well. To me, the cross is the absolute pivotal point in all of history. Everything is measured against that.
At the end of Job's story, one of his friends just sits there in silence, knowing that just being present is sometimes the only answer in the face of suffering. This is a wise friend. God does not make us suffer to teach us a lesson, or to make us stronger, but because we suffer nonetheless, God - through the cross - has decided to be present even in the suffering. It does not feel like Easter yet, but we carry on with the hope that her body will soon bear those signs of the resurrection that we so eagerly await.
