On Suffering, with Rob Bell and Derek Foster
Sometimes I get tempted to saw forget it and walk away from the whole God thing.
When I say “sometimes” I mean: quite often.
It’s not the inconsistencies within systematic religion that makes me want to give up, nor is it my opinion of (current) Biblical accuracy. Not even the hypocrisy within the church. Not the Ken Silva’s. Not the bad music.
It’s suffering. It’s theodicy. It’s pain.
Those are the things that make me want to throw in the towel, and tell god (if there is such a being that fits the theistic implications we attach to that word) have fun without me.
But I don’t.
–This is the weight I’ve carried for years, the weight that no amount of thinking through and dealing with can be systematized and neatly put into a box of understanding. The problem of suffering is there. That is it, but it wasn’t till last night when I had an actual workable framework in which to help “cope” with suffering.
Last night, Derek Foster and I went to see Rob Bell on his “Drops Like Stars” tour. Before the night started Derek asked me if I knew what it was about, and I replied, “Honestly, I’ve got no idea.”
Turns out, it was on suffering.
I won’t attempt to review the entirety of the night, in all honesty I think it was worth the price of admission and you should go see it yourself (or get the DVD when it comes out-but you’ll lose out on some of it that way). But, I want to bring up a few highlights from the night, and from the ride home.
-The story of the prodigal son doesn’t have a happy ending between the son that stayed and the father—there was no ending, simply a cliffhanger. “Sometimes the marriage doesn’t work out- sometimes… there the ending isn’t happy. Sometimes it is”
-The artist appreciates every failure as much, or more than every success. It is the failures that make the art more beautiful.
-Our suffering brings community with others that breaks through the barriers we set up. “Show me two fathers from different political spectrums, different religions, different socio-economic status, different education levels, that both have daughters with eating disorders, and I’ll show you two fathers that have far more in common than they have different.”
Then, during our ride home Derek brought up an interesting point. In Lord of the Rings, the Eagles could have simply grabbed the ring and dropped it into the fires of Mt. Doom, alleviating Frodo from the horrible quest, removing the onus of becoming the King (and facing his demons) from Aragorn, Gandalf never would have suffered the eternal fall and wouldn’t have needed to fight his fellow Maia.
(Parenthetical: This launched into a brief discussion on whether the Valor would allow Manwe’s eagles to intervene in such a manor in the affairs of Middle Earth. If you have read the Silmarillion recently, can you speak to whether or not the Valor made any such statements?)
But the story wouldn’t captivate us. It’s the task of defeating evil that grips us throughout the books and films, but instead it’s the suffering we understand. It’s the trials we commune with. It’s the pain that holds our hearts in tune with those that struggle.
But more than that, what would Gandalf be had he not fought the Balrog and become Gandalf the White? Would he have ever become “completed”? Would Aragorn be the greatest King had he not had to deal with Isildur’s legacy? Would any of the characters become the better versions of themselves had they not suffered through the trials the Fellowship brought? Would the world have reveled in the peace of the Fourth age had they not been through the hell of the Third Age?
Is it that we need suffering to truly appreciate the absence of suffering? Do we need suffering to make our lives “worth it”?
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