November/December 2001

Dealing with Suffering

by Charles W. Blaker

I just found out I have cancer. Sheesh! Seventy-four years of vibrant health -- and now this!

"Anybody lives long enough, he's probably going to get it," says my family doctor with a shrug.

"Hey," I feel like I ought to shout, "this isn't 'anybody,' blast it; it's ME!" Only I don't. I say, "Well, well..." And my heart ticks along at its normal rate. And "I," standing apart and observing "me," shake my head and mutter, "There's something wrong with me!"

For the person who has cancer, the knowledge is intensely personal. Cancer is often terminal; and there's a devil's brew of anger, fear, helplessness and frustration -- even strangely, guilt -- that floods over the victim, as well as his/her family, when the diagnosis is confirmed.

Some people remain upbeat, confident and in control, while others come apart at the seams.

Why?

I think the ability to deal calmly with -- to accept -- any of life's crises may be an indication that something a bit unusual is going on. Might be worth investigating.

When faced with suffering and pain, the Christian realist discovers six separate considerations underlying his or her understanding of life:

"No Rose Gardens"

1. At any moment somewhere in the world, people are being tortured because they hold the wrong political opinion; being killed or maimed by explosive charges hidden in briefcases, parked automobiles, letters; suffering the debilitating effects of chemotherapy; slowly losing their grasp of reality as Alzheimer's works its destruction; starving; cursed with cystic fibrosis, or multiple sclerosis; devastated by hurricanes and tornados....

In the face of all this, what colossal ego would underlie my whining objection, "Why me?" when my turn comes.

Only he's some twenty-seven hundred years out of sync. The Hebrews of the sixth century B.C. finally gave up the idea that their God kept a balance sheet, that rewards were handed out for good behavior. They faced the problem of innocent suffering head on, and the poetic section of what Jews and Christians call the "Book of Job" was the result.

Eighteen generations later, Jesus told his followers they could expect persecution and suffering.

Modern man has coined his own phrase to say the same thing: "I never promised you a rose garden!"

So when my turn comes, I grit my teeth and batten down the hatches.

Prayer

2. Of course, the Christian may figure he has an ace up his sleeve. Even if he or she has to accept the onset of suffering as does anyone else, he has the recourse of prayer. And through prayers he can badger God to reverse the circumstances that initiated the suffering. A miracle!

Well, that's what Jesus said, wasn't it?

"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer" (Matthew 21:22).

"I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20).

Yes -- well -- it didn't work, even for him, all the time, did it? His most passionate prayer for release from the need to suffer and die at the hands of the Roman governor got silence for an answer. Or a firm "NO!" depending on how you look at it.

I know, I know. This opens a can of worms, and this is not the place to deal with it. But it does point the direction in which my own faith has moved over the years.

I was trained, first, as an engineer. The engineer has some limited background that might classify him as a novice scientist. The engineer and scientist deal with the way things work in a material world.

Of one thing engineers and scientists have been sure (until very recently, when a certain randomness in the behavior of sub-atomic particles was discovered). On a macroscopic scale, at least, things behave consistently. That consistent behavior gave expression to laws.

The law of gravity, for example, says that a novice pilot, trying an outside loop in an open cockpit Stearman biplane without a fastened safety belt, will fall out of the cockpit and plummet toward the earth. His rate of descent will increase until air resistance is equal to the accelerating force of gravity. At that point his rate of fall becomes constant, and he will hit the ground with devastating effects on both him and it.

Now, to think that the careless pilot can compensate for his idiocy by praying for a change in the law of gravity to permit him to impact without harm would violate everything I know about science. But, more importantly, it would violate everything I believe about God.

I believe that God is internally consistent. If he were not, he would be little different from us -- unstable, capricious, bending to any importunate voice. I would no more worship that kind of "god" than I would my best friend -- a nice guy who also can be swayed by my pleading.

But if prayer can't negate the operation of those laws holding the universe together, of what use is it? Is God, then, no more than Aristotle's "Prime Mover" -- the one who assembled the machine, wound it up and then wandered off someplace to let it run down unattended?

I don't think so! The writer of the Gospel according to John reaffirmed the communicating nature of God by using the Greek term, logos (which means word), when speaking of the Christ (Jesus, the Galilean

Carpenter), who was the personification of God's communicating nature. And Jesus taught -- that is, revealed the nature of God and the relationship between God and men through oral communication.

Perhaps the image of God which we bear, according to the Judaeo-Christian faith, lies in our nature as communicators. We communicate with each other; we communicate with God; he communicates with us.

And in the process of communication, minds can be changed, attitude altered, behavior modified. This, I believe, is the area in which prayer can be effective.

There is one further consideration. I mention it tentatively because there is no hard, scientific evidence to recommend it, though many researchers are beginning to wonder. In what way does my mind affect my body? Can I think myself out of illness into health?

Though any cause-effect relationship is still unproved, ulcers seem to be the reward of the dedicated worrier; insomnia is the bane of those who can't block out their minds' replay of the day's activity.

And if prayer can allow God to communicate with me so that I can then deal with illness in a positive way, might this, in fact, alter the circumstances in which the illness is manifest? "Miracle!" somebody exclaims. So...?

I use the term allow just now. Does it seem strange to speak of allowing God to do anything? If he's God, he ought to be able to do anything he wants to do! I'm sure he can; but, unlike ourselves in whom desire is often at odds with character, God must be self-consistent. He cannot want to do something that is inconsistent with his nature.

Human Freedom

3. And this leads to the third facet of the Christian realist's view of life -- human freedom.

I've often felt that poets come closer to the heart of theological truth than do theologians. James Weldon Johnson wrote a long poem some years back called God's Trombones. A passage from that poem has been lifted and published as "The Creation." In simplistic fashion the poem pictures God saying to himself, "I'm lonely!" So he sets out to make a world. But after his initial delight over his creation -- with its sun and moon, its stars, its seas, birds, beasts -- he complains, "I'm lonely still!" And then, the inspiration: "I'll make me a man!"

The man he makes is in his own image, enlivened with his own breath, like him in all respects, inferior only as a son is inferior to his father, but free to accept or to reject his father's teaching.

And by granting men freedom, God limited himself. If I get in my car and roar off to work some morning while rehashing the breakfast argument with my wife, God probably won't keep me from driving through a stop sign, totaling my car and that of some unsuspecting driver who has the right-of-way. With freedom, I am responsible for my actions; God is not. Neither is God responsible for what someone else may do to me as that person exercises his own freedom.

And we're back to innocent suffering. It's a matter of comparative values, I think. Does life offer greater value lived in creative freedom as a son of the Creator, even with suffering, than life, placid and passionless, lived as a divine robot? For me it does!

What is Death?

4. The fourth facet of the Christian realist's view of life has to do with its terminus ad quem -- the end toward which life is directed.

Most of us call that end death. We invest it with all kinds of morbid associations, not the least of which is the view that death is the end of everything. Small wonder many of us try to postpone that end as long as we can, while others deliberately refuse to acknowledge its reality until it confronts them, unexpectedly, around a corner of one of life's shadowed alleys into which they have blundered.

Admittedly, I can offer no proof, in the scientific sense, of any continuation beyond death. Some of my humanistic friends think my belief in continued existence is a betrayal of our mutual scientific background. Not at all! The scientist has to believe that something may be possible before he will expend his energy in trying to find out if it is!

The scientist is what he is because of his insatiable curiosity: "I wonder if...?" "Could it be possible that...?" "What effect would this have on...?"

And acting on the presupposition that something may be true, he sets out to find out if it is.

I make no apology, then, for my belief that consciousness -- the essence of personhood -- continues beyond the point we call death. And while the recent surge of reports of peri-death experiences does not qualify, in any sense, as scientific research, it does highlight a growing interest in a body of experience that may ultimately evolve into legitimate research, supporting the belief.

If I believe that death is a door and not a blank wall at the end of a blind street, I am not thrown into despair at the idea that my cancer may lead me to it. I can pass through the door, crossing the threshold of a continuing experience that will provide its own growth, challenge, reward and fulfillment. I may regret leaving some things unfinished at this level. I certainly will regret leaving friends and family who are not yet facing their own door. But new challenges will replace ones left unfinished here, and family and friends will cross the threshold in their own time to continue the relationships we have had here.

As an expression of the same idea, the apostle Paul's statement about death in his first letter to the young church in Corinth is unsurpassed. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Live Each Day

5. The fifth facet of the Christian realist's view of life is a consequence of the previous four. Relieved of the self-serving belief that he is different and should not be faced with the indignities others suffer, relieved of the frustrating myth that God will, literally, move heaven and earth to give him what he or she wants, accepting the consequences of freedom for himself and for others, facing death as opportunity rather than catastrophe, the Christian realist embraces each day with excitement.

Regardless of the prognosis of his disease (if he is so encumbered), regardless of the "slings and arrows" directed his way, each day provides him opportunity for new insight into himself and his relation to the cosmos of which he is a part -- from the raging furnace of an exploding star to the serenity of a wheat field, brushed by a fragrant summer breeze.

And freed from the inhibiting effect of fear for, and worry about, himself, the Christian realist becomes more aware of others -- not as competitors or as threats, but as persons with their own ambitions, frustrations, fears and pain.

Love

6. And with that heightened awareness comes the ability to offer -- and to accept -- love.

How our society has bastardized the word! We love steak, puppies, the sunset, a good argument, our latest paramour, and on and on. The ancient Greeks were more discerning. They had several words for the range of emotions we call love. Three of those words will serve to illustrate the differences.

Eros was used when sexual passion was involved. Philos was used when the relationship was fraternal. Agape was used when an overriding concern for the welfare of another person was intended.

It is the third word -- agape -- that characterizes the Christian realist. Having gained his own perception of reality, perhaps as in a "refiner's fire," he has gained, also, an understanding of the fears, doubts and hopes of others. And that understanding opens the way for him to say, "Hey, I know what you're facing. I've been there! You know what I found?"

Six facets of the Christian realist's view of life. They allow him to live creatively in the darkest as well as in the brightest of times, to reach out to others, stumbling through their own darkness, with a touch of compassion and a word of reassurance.

Hey, I know. I've been there! 

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