Tag: suffering

Basic Training

November 9th 

“Two things were today particularly impressed upon my heart, and may the Lord deepen the impression.”

from A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller (Pt. 2)

Guard, through the Holy Spirit who lives in us, that good thing entrusted to you…
…be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. To please the recruiter, no one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the concerns of everyday life. Also, if anyone competes as an athlete, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to be the first to get a share of the crops. Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

I was already thinking about it, but the main reasons you’re suffering through this over-quoted passage are because: a) it doesn’t hurt to hear it again and b) I finally got around to finishing watching Sherlock (BBC) a few weeks ago, and it made an unaccountably overwhelming impression, forcing me to update my own interpretation of the warrior metaphor. (The whole “we’re soldiers, it doesn’t matter what happens to us…’ bit. Apparently I have a mental folder for cliches, because Next Generation, vaudeville jokes, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…”, various portions of the New Testament and Isaiah, and now the cornier Sherlock lines are all stored in the same place.)

Of course, I am not the person in my family that finds the ‘give me liberty or give me death‘ trope inspiring (pretty sure you can’t enjoy liberty if you’re dead), and I’m sadly lacking the epic heroism gene, so the only less fitting metaphor would possibly the athletic one. You know, where God is the really good coach, that you still kind of hate sometimes because He makes you do fartleks, or some other form of highly effective torture, I mean training. (Naturally this means that God uses it all the freakin’ time.)

The human condition

October 3rd

“Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Mark 14:38 (NIV)

Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don’t agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ. For the beginning of the Passion—the first move, so to speak—is in Gethsemane.

We all try to accept with some sort of submission our afflictions when they actually arrive. But the prayer in Gethsemane shows that the preceding anxiety is equally God’s will and equally part of our human destiny. The perfect Man experienced it. And the servant is not greater than the master. We are Christians, not Stoics.

Does not every movement in the Passion write large some common element in the sufferings of our race? First, the prayer of anguish; not granted. Then He turns to His friends. They are asleep—as ours, or we, are so often, or busy, or away, or preoccupied. Then He faces the Church; the very Church that He brought into existence. It condemns Him. This is also characteristic. In every Church, in every institution, there is something which sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. But there seems to be another chance. There is the State; in this case, the Roman state. Its pretensions are far lower than those of the Jewish church, but for that very reason it may be free from local fanaticisms. It claims to be just, on a rough, worldly level. Yes, but only so far as is consistent with political expediency and raison d’état. One becomes a counter in a complicated game. But even now all is not lost. There is still an appeal to the People—the poor and simple whom He had blessed, whom He had healed and fed and taught, to whom He himself belongs. But they have become over-night (it is nothing unusual) a murderous rabble shouting for His blood. There is, then, nothing left but God. And to God, God’s last words are, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

You see how characteristic, how representative, it all is. The human situation writ large. These are among the things it means to be a man. Every rope breaks when you seize it. Every door is slammed shut as you reach it.

…how can we either understand or endure it? Is it that God Himself cannot be Man unless God seems to vanish at His greatest need? And if so, why? I sometimes wonder if we have even begun to understand what is involved in the very concept of creation. If God will create, He will make something to be, and yet to be not Himself. To be created is, in some sense, to be ejected or separated.

…The stakes have to be raised before we take the game quite seriously.

from C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Malcolm:
Chiefly on the subject of prayer (Ch. 8)

I apologize if this is depressing, but Buddhism is a current topic for me, and there’s really nothing like it to get you thinking about the human condition and the nature of suffering.

…and, on a related note, here’s Tenth Avenue North’s Don’t Stop the Madness on Youtube and Spotify.

Harvest metaphors

September 29th

Does the plowman plow every day to plant seed? Does he continuously break up and cultivate the soil? Certainly… bread grain is crushed, but is not crushed endlessly. 

Isaiah 28:24,28 (HCSB)

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John Donne, Holy Sonnets (XIV)

Because it’s a classic, and I’m feeling self-indulgent, and because I’m still steaming mad about the article on the ‘eroticism’ of George Herbert that I read two years ago. Erotic metaphor has a long and variable history, but no one who has anything even remotely approaching a temper can interpret Herbert’s passion as even the most sublimated sort of eroticism. Hopkins, yeah, probably. Donne, definitely. Paul, Augustine… Hildegard of flipping Bingen, sure. But that is emphatically not Herbert’s focus.

On a related note, I really liked Sayers’ (I think it was in Catholic Tales) use of the whole troubadour meme to expand on the Christ and the Bride metaphor, with Christ as a wandering minstrel whose ‘rivals’ have ‘weirded him to wander through black enchanted lands’ with ‘his red robes gone to ruin and his riches gone to wrack:’
Singing ‘Lady, lady, will you come away with me?
Was never man lived longer for the hoarding of his breath
Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain…
If we perish in the seeking, why, how small a thing is death!’
It’s probably a little bit heretical, but… *shrug*
Sorry I’m too lazy to look the rest of it up. See above about self-indulgence.
Anyway, Happy Michaelmas to anyone who cares, and this evening should be the beginning of Rosh Hoshanah, which isn’t exactly a harvest festival, but the timing is related to Sukkot, so… close enough.

Infinite change

September 27th 

…and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Romans 5:2-5 (BSB)

What at present is your condition in suffering? The doctor and the pastor ask about your health, but eternity makes you responsible for your condition. Does it frivolously or superstitiously fluctuate in a fever of impatience? Or are you willing to suffer all and let the Eternal comfort you? As time goes by, how does your condition change? Did you begin well perhaps but become more and more impatient? Or perhaps you were impatient at the beginning, but learned patience from what you suffered?

Alas, perhaps year after year your suffering remained unchanged, and if it did change, then its description would be a matter for the doctor or the pastor. Alas, perhaps the unaltered monotony of the suffering seems to you like a creeping death. But while the doctor and the pastor and your friend know of no change to speak of, yet [this] talk asks you whether under the pressure of the unchanged monotony an infinite change is taking place. Not a change in the suffering (for even if it is changed, it can only be a finite change), but in you, an infinite change in you from good to better.

from Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing 
(Ch. 14, Steere translation)

I hesitated to post this, because obviously it’s a super-popular subject.

…and here’s Josh Garrels’ The Resistance on Youtube and Spotify, which is actually why you’re getting more from Purity of Heart again so soon, because it reminded me of this passage for some reason.

Since Longfellow came up earlier…

September 26th 

 

And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest…”

I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o’er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.

I saw her bright reflection
In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.

And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the gleaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long, black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away.

As, sweeping and eddying through them
Rose the belated tide,
And, streaming into the moonlight,
The seaweed floated wide.

And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me
That filled my eyes with tears.

How often, oh how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!

How often oh how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O’er the ocean wild and wide!

For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.

I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!

And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;

The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.

The Bridge by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have this very embarrassing habit (well, it’s not that embarrassing, or I wouldn’t be putting it on the internet, but…) of internally going “Henry. Wadsworth. Longfellow! ” whenever I run across a triple name. Pause. It makes history books slow going.

Also, I would like to point out that furnaces nearly always glow redder than the moon, because: black-body radiation. But I am not a pedantic wretch, so I shan’t. (Also, fires turn blue when they get hotter OneRepublic, and this will never not bother me… unless you’re implying arson. In which case, you should keep your science adviser on, but then we have other concerns.)

…and if you made it this far… here’s a picture of the moon.

‘Mourn with those who mourn’

August 9th 

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love…. He will not necessarily protect us – not from anything it takes to make us like His Son.

Elisabeth Elliot

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

….Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

….Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

from Romans 12:1-3,12,15 (NIV)

Andrew Petersen’s Always Good, on Youtube and Spotify respectively.

Hinds’ feet…

March 20th 

Yet I will wait patiently… though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. 

Habakkuk 3:16-19 (NIV)

We feel we would give anything if only we could, in actual experience, live on the High Places of love and victory here on this earth and during this life—able always to react to evil, tribulation, sorrow, pain, and every wrong thing in such a way that they would be overcome and transformed into something to the praise and glory of God forever. As Christians we know, in theory at least, that in the life of a child of God there are no second causes, that even the most unjust and cruel things, as well as all seemingly pointless and undeserved sufferings, have been permitted by God as a glorious opportunity for us to react to them in such a way that our Lord and Savior is able to produce in us, little by little, his own lovely character.

from Hannah Hurnard’s Hinds’ Feet on High Places (Preface)

The ‘hind’s feet’ meme is also mentioned in Psalm 18. Also apropos… How to staying trusting when you don’t understand.

I am so inexpressibly reluctant to post audio. And even more reluctant to share something from someone who is currently ministering, from a potentially divisive source, but somebody sent this to me, and it was so on-topic for me (though I was thinking about it mainly in terms of sharing in the sufferings of Christ, and philosophy; that is, the tension between being and becoming, and lots of other things no one else cares about) that I figured I would share it.

And, regarding any doctrinal or practical differences any of the parties involved might have. He had a quote that went something like: “A lot of the time we’ll recommend a book to someone and say something like ‘You have to read this, it’s really great. Be careful though: his doctrine on the Trinity is a bit iffy.’ and we never say “You’ve got to read this book. Careful though: he’s never raised the dead.’ ”

Which… ouch. I am so guilty there.

The God of all comfort

March 16th

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (ESV)

 

If a good man were ever housed in Hell

By needful error of the qualities,

Perhaps to prove the rule or shame the devil,

Or speak the truth only a stranger sees,

 

Would he, surrendering quick to obvious hate,

Fill half eternity with cries and tears,

Or watch beside Hell’s little wicket gate

In patience for the first ten thousand years,

 

Feeling the curse climb slowly to his throat

That, uttered, dooms him to rescindless ill,

Forcing his praying tongue to run by rote,

Eternity entire before him still?

 

Would he at last, grown faithful in his station,

Kindle a little hope in hopeless Hell,

And sow among the damned doubts of damnation,

Since here someone could live and could live well?

 

One doubt of evil would bring down such a grace,

Open such a gate, all Eden could enter in,

Hell be a place like any other place,

And love and hate and life and death begin.

 

Edwin Muir, The Good Man in Hell (The Narrow Place)

*clears throat*

So Muir was a little inclined towards melodrama…

The Voice of Job

February 27th

When a person dies, will he come back to life? If so, I would wait all the days of my struggle until my relief comes. You would call, and I would answer you…

Job 14:14-15 (CSB)

God does not, I say, tell Job why he had afflicted him: he rouses his child-heart to trust. All the rest of Job’s life on earth, I imagine, his slowly vanishing perplexities would yield him ever fresh meditations concerning God and his ways, new opportunities of trusting him, light upon many things concerning which he had not as yet begun to doubt, added means of growing in all directions into the knowledge of God. His perplexities would thus prove of divinest gift. Everything, in truth, which we cannot understand, is a closed book of larger knowledge and blessedness, whose clasps the blessed perplexity urges us to open. There is, there can be, nothing which is not in itself a righteous intelligibility—whether an intelligibility for us, matters nothing. The awful thing would be, that anything should be in its nature unintelligible: that would be the same as no God. That God knows is enough for me; I shall know, if I can know. It would be death to think God did not know; it would be as much as to conclude there was no God to know.

from George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons (The Voice of Job)

…and, for your musical enjoyment, Michael Card’s The Hidden Face of God on Youtube and Spotify respectively

And here we have my least favorite bible verse…

February 22nd

It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

Lamentations 3:26 (KJV)

For one who notices a sort of sadness which constricts and oppresses the heart, here are two rules which seem to me well worth observing. The first is to help this sadness by the means which Providence affords us, for example, by not overloading ourselves with painful affairs, so as not to succumb under a burden beyond our strength, to husband not only our bodily strength, but also that of our mind; by keeping hours for prayer, for reading; for encouraging ourselves with good conversation, even by making merry; to relax mind and body at the same time, according to our need.

We still need some safe and discreet person, to whom we can unburden our heart of everything which is not another’s secret, for this unburdening comforts and enlarges the oppressed heart. Often suffering, too long kept in, increases until it breaks the heart. If we could get it out, we should see that it was not worth all the bitterness which it had caused us. Nothing so draws the soul from the depths of gloom, as the simplicity and the littleness with which it tells its discouragement at the expense of its reputation, asking light and consolation in the communion which should exist between the children of God.

The second rule is to carry peacefully all the involuntary feelings of sadness which we suffer in spite of the help and precautions which we have just explained. Discouragements within make us go faster than all else in the way of faith, provided that they do not stop us. One step taken in this state is always the step of a giant. It is worth more than a thousand taken in a milder and more comfortable mood. We have only to scorn our discouragement, and always to go on, in order to make this state of weakness more useful and greater than the most heroic state of courage and strength.

O, how deceiving this courage of the senses is, which makes everything easy, which does everything and endures everything, which knows itself willing never to hesitate! We get a taste for our own goodness; we are pleased with it; we want to possess it; we are glad to know its strength.

A weak and humble soul, which finds no more resource in itself, which fears, is troubled, is sad unto death, as Jesus Christ was when he was in the garden; which cries at last as he did on the cross,  “O God, O my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” is much more purified, underrates itself more, is more annihilated and more dead to all its own desire, than the brave souls which enjoy in peace the fruits of their own virtue.

from Fenelon’s Christian Perfection (Helps in Sadness)

…every time I read Jeremiah (or Lamentations, obviously) my first response is always ‘Man, it sucks to be you.’