On Doubt . . .

Since one of the beauties of a blog is that I can post whatever I want, you'll excuse me for dusting off a few old journal entries now and then. This sad, sobering one seems to be worth revisiting.

July 14, 2002

After a long, long drive home this afternoon, I planned to write a light-hearted account of my adventures in the haunted woods at the base of Mt. Fuji. (I spent most of the weekend traipsing about those woods taking pictures.) But a sobering email from Becky prompted me to address a far more serious topic: doubt. Not just uncertainty about this or that, but doubt with a capital "D."

My nephew Lindon, Jenny and Joe’s baby boy, has a brain tumor—a big, inoperable one. Barring some miracle of faith and chemotherapy, he will die, and his parents will be left to struggle with the big questions: doubt with a capital "D." It’s strange: I had a lot of time to think this trip, and at one point in my mental meanderings I remember stopping to consider what I would do, how I would feel, if something terrible happened to one of my children, Jordan or little Sarah. I remember thinking: "I don’t know if my faith could handle another blow like that." I came home to discover the just such a blow has been struck, just not at me. But I’m still left with the weighty questions. From a philosophical point of view, it’s no different, is it, just because it’s someone else’s kid? I don’t think so.

What I struggle with is the suffering of the innocent. I have no problem with personal suffering on account of wrongdoing, poor choices, even honest mistakes. Consequences—often in the form of suffering of some kind—teach us, strengthen us, benefit us in often unforeseen ways. Similarly, I have been taught, and have always accepted, that our poor choices may cause others to suffer as well. A drunk driver kills a small child. Tragic, yes, but at least we can ascribe the result to agency. God will not interfere with our wrong choices, even if they have tragic consequences for others. But this leaves unexplained a vast ocean of human suffering that has nothing to do with poor choices. (In truth agency can only explain a portion of the first two categories. If I make a mistake at the wheel, it may scratch the car, or I might be killed—for the same mistake. The uncertainty of the consequence defies the simple explanation that "I had it coming." Same goes for a mistake or bad act that hurts another--agency cannot explain the kind or degree of suffering.)

But the third category is the most troubling, and what prompted my soul searching. Why Lindon? What can explain his suffering? Nothing.

The only answer left is the one I cannot be satisfied with: it’s God’s will, or, put differently, it’s part of "the Plan." But the Plan doesn’t speak to this, except to suggest that we might learn something from his—Lindon’s—suffering. But what is there to learn? What is the wisdom purchased at such great price? Is it to be grateful for what we have, like Job, to thank God when all is taken away from us because we can still draw breath?

So, we’re left grasping at straws: "He’s needed more over there," "The whole point of this life is to get a body, and he did that," or "He will be in a place where there is no suffering and all is peaceful." I hope so, but something about these explanations smacks of administrative convenience: we can’t explain it, so we come up with these things to make ourselves feel better. But I don’t feel better. Not right now. Life is too precious to be given short shrift. I wonder why our little girl was born dead in my arms, and why our friends' baby died, and why Sarah had Down’s Syndrome, and Ben schizophrenia, and why Lindon has cancer. Why oh why must such things be?

I suspect I will never know the answer in this life, and will be left to make do as best I can, convinced—because there is a certain irreduceable sum of answers that I firmly believe—that there must be some explanation that escapes my finite mind. But it’s cold comfort.

. . . .

After some time to reflect I concluded that I can’t let the journal entry end there, as an unmoderated expression of doubt. So what do I believe? It’s a tough question these days, in the face of so much uncertainty, but there is, as I said, a "certain sum of irreduceable answers"—things I know to be true. Here are a few that come to mind:

I believe in love, and by love I mean to encompass both the love I feel for my wife Becky and the kids and "brotherly love" or charity: the pure love of Christ. The love I feel is never that pure, it’s often diluted or tainted by self-interest, but I believe in the ideal, and I’ve felt it enough in the giving and the receiving to be sure of it. I mean selflessness: that enobling quality of concern for others, and a willingness to serve them, help them, sacrifice for them. In this form it is pure and powerful, and it is real. My mother knew and understood this, and exemplified it in many respects. With time I have come to realize that the smug expression—"there is no such thing as a selfless act"—is a lie.

I believe in hope. I know that sound silly, since faith and hope are two sides of the same coin (would I say "I believe in belief?"), but what I mean is this: I believe in the power of hope. It has a redemptive quality to it, almost in the nature of a self-fulfilling prophecy: in hoping that the world is fundamentally good, we seek to make the world a better place, and it becomes—if not "good"—then at least better. That benefit is real. What’s more, there’s a tangible personal benefit as well. It doesn’t surprise me at all when studies come out saying that people of faith live longer or happier lives. It rings true, because I’ve felt it in my own life. When the Spirit attests that something is right or true or good, it feels good, and I know I am better for the experience.

Lastly, I believe in beauty, and by that I mean the spark of recognition I feel when I see something beautiful, whether it be an act of simple service, the face of a loved one, or a rainbow caught in a waterfall. These things are beautiful to me, and my reaction to them is real.

That’s a short list, I know, and there are more, but those are the truths that spring immediately to mind. From these truths I draw comfort and strength—even when the doubts seem overwhelming.