Just drifting around a few other threads and for some reason my memory was jolted back to 1985, the time of Liveaid, and the famine in Ethiopia. During every newscast there seemed to be fresh pictures that called a lot of things into question.
During those days I was walking my six year old daughter to school. At one point she looked up to the clouds in the sky and said........"I wonder if God's up there behind that cloud?" Well, knowing the injunctions in the Good Book concerning taking away the faith of little ones, I said: "Oh, God's not like that, God is everywhere." To which the little mite replied..........."Blimey! He must be a fat bloke!" Then , her thoughts drifting on, she asked......"Why did God create wasps?" I immediately caught her drift, a friend of hers having been stung a few days before. I replied: "We mustn't just judge why something exists based only on our own likes and dislikes. You may not like wasps, but there is a purpose for everything created." Anyway, we walked on in silence for a couple of minutes. Yet my daughter must have been thinking, for she then looked up at me and asked....."Why did God create the people of Ethiopia?" I can't exactly remember my exact answer, perhaps I mumbled something about sometimes needing to just seek to help as much as we could. Yet remembering her question always seems to break my heart.
Anyway, I do think that whatever our Faith, suffering seems to compromise it in some way. This isn't a challenge to anyone in anyway to defend their Faith. The Christian "answer", that God does not remain "aloof and beyond", but in a profound way shares suffering with us and in us..................seems to me as real as any.
He doth give his joy to all.
He becomes an infant small.
He becomes a man of woe
He doth feel the sorrow too.
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy maker is not by.
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy maker is not near.
O! he gives to us his joy,
That our grief he may destroy.
Till out grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan. (Blake, excerpt from "On Another's Sorrow")
So, no "challenge" to defend, but more a call to reflect and deepen.............whatever our path and faith.
To finish, the poem "H'm" by R.S.Thomas......
and one said
speak to us of love
and the preacher opened
his mouth and the word God
fell out so they tried
again speak to us
of God then but the preacher
was silent reaching
his arms out but the little
children the ones with
big bellies and bow
legs that were like
a razor shell
were too weak to come
During those days I was walking my six year old daughter to school. At one point she looked up to the clouds in the sky and said........"I wonder if God's up there behind that cloud?" Well, knowing the injunctions in the Good Book concerning taking away the faith of little ones, I said: "Oh, God's not like that, God is everywhere." To which the little mite replied..........."Blimey! He must be a fat bloke!" Then , her thoughts drifting on, she asked......"Why did God create wasps?" I immediately caught her drift, a friend of hers having been stung a few days before. I replied: "We mustn't just judge why something exists based only on our own likes and dislikes. You may not like wasps, but there is a purpose for everything created." Anyway, we walked on in silence for a couple of minutes. Yet my daughter must have been thinking, for she then looked up at me and asked....."Why did God create the people of Ethiopia?" I can't exactly remember my exact answer, perhaps I mumbled something about sometimes needing to just seek to help as much as we could. Yet remembering her question always seems to break my heart.
Anyway, I do think that whatever our Faith, suffering seems to compromise it in some way. This isn't a challenge to anyone in anyway to defend their Faith. The Christian "answer", that God does not remain "aloof and beyond", but in a profound way shares suffering with us and in us..................seems to me as real as any.
He doth give his joy to all.
He becomes an infant small.
He becomes a man of woe
He doth feel the sorrow too.
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy maker is not by.
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy maker is not near.
O! he gives to us his joy,
That our grief he may destroy.
Till out grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan. (Blake, excerpt from "On Another's Sorrow")
So, no "challenge" to defend, but more a call to reflect and deepen.............whatever our path and faith.
To finish, the poem "H'm" by R.S.Thomas......
and one said
speak to us of love
and the preacher opened
his mouth and the word God
fell out so they tried
again speak to us
of God then but the preacher
was silent reaching
his arms out but the little
children the ones with
big bellies and bow
legs that were like
a razor shell
were too weak to come