Newspaper Columns by The Rev. Canon Bill Lewellis
Repainting God’s face through tears
By Bill Lewellis
Express-Times, June 20, 2003
My cousin, her husband and their three children have been dealing with the loss of their 21-year-old son and brother to the recklessness of a drunk driver. Joseph was killed instantly a few months ago.
When senseless horrors happen, we often need to find someone to blame beyond the drunk driver. Someone closer. Perhaps ourselves. Perhaps God.
At best, the God once thought to be in total control doesn’t look the same to those left behind -- unless they hold on to the terrible teaching that God caused this to happen for some reason yet unknown.
I can’t imagine God pulling strings, micromanaging senseless suffering. I can’t imagine God involved even to the extent of “allowing” suffering to happen. I can only imagine God to be as angry and afflicted as those whom tragedy affects. God no more micromanaged the death of Joseph than God micromanaged Hitler’s Holocaust.
As we work our way through tragedy, we repaint portraits of God once drawn from the naïve theology of well meaning people who in turn may have drawn them ultimately from teachers who should have known better.
“A pious neighbor comforted me,” Lewis Smedes wrote after his child of a day died, “by reminding me that God was in control. I wanted to say to her, Not this time. It seems to me that the privilege of being the delicate organisms we are in the kind of world we live in comes at a price. The price is that things can go wrong, badly wrong sometimes, which should come as no surprise.”
Where was God? “God was right there doing what God always does in the presence of evil that is willed by humans – fighting it, resisting it, battling it, trying God’s best to keep it from happening. This time evil won. God, we hope, will win one day, emerge triumphant over evil – though, on the way to that glad day, God sometimes takes a beating.”
A long time ago, I lived through a tragedy with a couple who had four children, including twin girls. When Sandra and Susan were 12 years old, they contracted a virus. Sandra’s became virus encephalitis. She died within three days at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. Her parents and I watched that happen.
During the next few days, I spent a lot of time with Ed and Betty. On the day of the funeral, while I was speaking with Betty, she said something like, “I think Ed hasn’t cried yet. I suspect he thinks that will make me feel even worse. He needs to cry. Would you spend some time with him alone and help him cry?”
As soon as possible, I did that. Ed cried. Then he said something that helped me not ever forget either of them and how they were able to deal with what they had to deal with and not get stuck in any ditch. Not knowing that Betty sent me to Ed, Ed also said something like, “I think Betty hasn’t cried yet. She thinks that will make me feel even worse. She needs to cry. Would you spend some time with her alone and help her cry?”
There’s no way to make sense out of evil and senseless tragedy. Evil happens. Senseless tragedy happens. Let’s not resort to the false, fleeting comfort that the infliction of pain and suffering is somehow part of a larger, mysterious plan of God. Better to repaint God’s face. Better to cry and hang in there with your loved ones and good friends.
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