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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The Chaos of Our Time, Listening, and Forgiveness
Chaos and the Naivete of Forgiveness Given the chaos breaking out across our nation and in the world, the rise of a hateful nationalism, and the brutal attacks on human decency and human lives that have been encouraged by our own president, it seems naive to write about listening and forgiveness. In less than a month there have been two major mass shootings; Christine Blasey Ford continues to receive death threats; our president has named Matthew Whitaker, a critic of the Mueller investigation, as “acting” Attorney General; and as he has always done, he undermines our democracy and foments crises that almost seem designed to divert our attention from important matters such as…
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Holding Ourselves Accountable and the Importance of Feelings
Managing Our Feelings The details are fuzzy. I think we were at some kind of party, maybe a birthday for one of my son’s friends. We mothers were hanging out with the kids, chatting, watching them play. Near me stood a woman I didn’t know well. Her boy was perhaps seven years old. I have no memory of what the child did or said. Probably, I hadn’t noticed. Whatever it was, it triggered in his mother an impressive outrage. Grabbing her son by the arm, she turned to me and said, “We have to leave. He’s upset me so much, I’m just too angry to enjoy myself any longer.” Her…