Seeking Relief from Suffering “Why shouldn’t people suffer?” one of our members asked during a sharing circle. “Maybe that’s why they’re good people.” The question of why suffering exists often comes up as we explore together what it means to be human, ponder how we can better serve the common good, and consider how to help our hearts grow in empathy. Suffering can help us develop kindness and compassion, but that doesn’t mean we like it. If God is real, and if She has anything to do with love, we wonder how She can allow her creatures to experience so much pain? It may be, as our group member suggested,…
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Free Will in a Quantum Universe
Seeking to Know Why As a hospital chaplain, I see a lot of suffering. Illness, financial insecurity, disability, betrayal, loneliness, and loss are common. Some patients wonder why God has afflicted them so. Even those who understand that we can’t divine a reason for suffering will still search for one. It is part of being human, this desire to know why. One patient told me, “I know ‘why’ isn’t a helpful question. I know there’s no answer. But sometimes I wonder if I did something wrong. Am I being punished? If so, maybe I can make it right. Maybe I can mend my ways, and then God will cure me.”…
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Removing Blocks to Love
We Are Love At the Universalist Recovery Church meetings, we talk a lot about love. Not long ago, we concluded that our essential nature is love. That’s not a unique idea. Many religious traditions endorse that belief, especially those comfortable with mysticism. Sufism, which is the mystical branch of Islam, is all about love. Called “lovers of God,” Sufis often speak about the blissful union between us and the divine, one that is better than the most intimate oneness between a lover and her beloved. [1] Before we were born, no separation existed between us and God. With birth, we lose the memory of that oneness. For the Sufi, our…
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Isolation and God’s Love
We Need One Another As far as I know, none of my friends or colleagues have contracted the coronavirus, but a number of them are getting sick with other ailments, whether chronic disorders or terminal diseases. I suppose it’s because I’m getting older, so my friends are aging, as well. Our bodies were designed to fall apart, and they do. Decay and death will happen to us all. But our physical vulnerability rarely feels real until we receive a diagnosis that shatters the comfortable control of our world. Then we face a grief and anxiety. Often, we can find peace on the other side, but first we must go through…
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Witnessing as a Sacred Act of Love
The Healing Power of Witnessing The world has always needed healing. Even in idyllic communities, violence can disturb the peace, and it’s possible war dates back to the time when Homo Sapiens lived among the Neanderthals. We aren’t certain what wiped out those neighbors of ours. Today, though, things seem desperate. We continue to pollute the land, burn fossil fuels, and hunt animals to extinction. Hatred and intolerance are rampant. Around the world, totalitarian regimes are gaining traction. Politicians and police are abusing their power. Black and brown people are killed simply because they exist. And we can’t even agree to wear masks to keep our neighbors safe. It’s as…
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J.B. and the Triumph of Love
Job’s Story You may know the story of Job. A pious citizen, he had been blessed by God with wealth, a large family, a lovely home, and many animals. One day, when Satan came with the other heavenly beings to God’s court, God boasted of his “servant” Job. Satan responded that anyone would be as faithful as Job if they’d been so blessed. “But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (Job 1:11). So, in a move that seems more human than divine, God gave Satan permission to take from Job all that he had. And Satan did.…
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Healing from Trauma
The Trauma of Coronavirus We live in a time of worldwide trauma. Not that this is new. After all, for as long as we have written down our histories, and perhaps before that, when all we had was an oral tradition filled with myths and violent gods, we humans have violated and terrorized one another. The coronavirus has merely made this more visible, at least to those of us whose lives are simple and orderly and safe. Now we are all in danger. An invisible virus is sickening and killing us. Our economies are falling apart. Stuck at home, lonely, bored, our tempers frayed, it seems our lives are unraveling.…
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Maundy Thursday, Love, and Coronavirus
Lent and Coronavirus For many of us, the coronavirus now consumes our thoughts, our dreams, our livelihoods, and even our bodies. People feel betrayed or abandoned. Though there are pockets of the world the virus hasn’t touched, chaos is widespread. While some of us are working round the clock to supply overwhelmed medical systems, and others are struggling to keep grocery stores supplied and stocked, and still others are caring for the sick and vulnerable, millions of us have lost jobs or businesses. Our gig economy has shattered. We are forced inside, left with little but our electronic communities, and those without internet connections don’t have even that. Ironically, it…
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Trusting in the Process
Losing to Win Sometimes you’ve got to lose before you win. At least, that seems to be Sam Hinkie’s belief. Between 2013 and 2016, he was the manager of the 76ers, a basketball team from Philadelphia. During that time, he came up with the phrase “trust the process” to encourage patience in those who doubted his strategy. In an article about Hinkie, Jason Wolf quoted him as saying you have to “start with an end in mind.” [1] That’s what he was doing with the 76ers. During their yearly draft, the National Basketball Association rewards losing teams with first choice from among the incoming college recruits. To exploit that tradition,…
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Informed, not Controlled, by Our Past
We All Have a Past In the play, Rosmersholm, by Henrik Ibsen, the white horse symbolizes the past we can’t release. All of us have a past. Not only are we born into this world beholden to those who have come before us, made up of the flesh, dreams, and stories of our ancestors, but our own histories, events, and experiences mold themselves into our DNA. In the book Live Bait by P. J. Tracy, a police officer, Gino Rolseth, notices a scar on the chest of a retired colleague. Upon learning that the man’s own father had cut him, he closes his eyes and thinks “of all the history…