This past week I had to change planes in Atlanta, and on the way to the gate I decided to buy a frozen yogurt cone. It turned out to be a work of art: the young woman who made it for me beamed when I complimented her on its height and symmetry. So I headed contentedly toward the gate, licking my yogurt — until for some unexplained reason, the yogurt fell out of the cone.
“What do I do now?” I asked myself, as crowds of travelers made their way around both me and the chocolate blob on the carpet. I considered trying to get it up with the flimsy napkin from the yogurt vendor, but knew this would be hopeless. So I stood there, gazing at the blob and feeling foolish.
Finally, unsure what else to do, I walked on. Before going very far, I saw three women whose uniforms made me think they were part of the cleaning staff, so I confessed to them. “Oh,” one of them said with a dismissive wave, “they’ll get it.” I didn’t know who “they” could be, but was more than happy to leave it in their capable hands, as I was obviously incapable of dealing with it myself.
But what about major disasters?
When I consider how helpless I felt before a simple blob of yogurt — not a catastrophe by any stretchof the imagination — I can’t even imagine the helplessness of those stricken by the tsunami disaster. Even those of us not directly affected have been trying to ease our own sense of helplessness, sometimes by donating to the relief efforts (a healthy response), other times by trying to assign blame. When a blob of yogurt can throw us off-kilter, an event that literally shakes the earth leaves us groping for answers. If we can find an answer, it seems, we will be less out of control.
Some people use any unexplainable and unmerited suffering — and especially that of children — as a reason for not believing in God. Others are convinced that God sent the tsunami as punishment for specific sins — generally someone else’s sins. Still others are blaming a nuclear test gone awry, the United States as a whole, or karma.
It is not wrong to ask why. It is not wrong to cry out with the Psalmist, “I suffer your terrors; I am helpless!” (88:15), or “All your waves and your billows have gone over me!” (Psalm 42:7). When we do this, we are praying out of our anguish.
Too confidently coming up with answers, however, is a different matter. While assigning blame may make us feel less vulnerable, a wiser response might well be to accept the reality of our helplessness before the mystery, just as we must do when faced with the suffering of a loved one or with the mystery of our own death.
From what we know of God in Christ, we can never conclude that God wills the suffering of innocent children. We can always trust, though, that the loving and compassionate God is present with us — for us — in the inexplicable mystery of great suffering.
And this is probably as far as we can proceed and where we must humbly remain.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly,
but then we will see face to face.
Now I know only in part;
then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is love.(I Corinthians 13:12 -13)