The paradox of suffering

My family just returned from Langkawi last week, escaping the horrible tsunami by a few days. It is at such moments that one truly wonders, again, about the paradox of suffering. Christians and most theistic believers affirm our faith firmly and completely in a God that is benign, loving and just. Yet when questioned about disasters such as the recent tsunami or September 11, and the general blight of suffering in creation, we often could say little that is satisfactory. What could we truly say to comfort or 'explain' the orphan and the widow, the dead children, the millions of homeless and the dying?

Words are indeed mostly useless in such situations. Yes we have our usual explanations, the Fall, karma, sin, whatever. Yet the symbols of religion perhaps avail us more help. In our suffering world, it is indeed to the credit of Christianity that its central symbol is a stark violent image of a Man pinned to a Cross. The symbol of the crucified Christ, both God and the Whole of humanity, do not explain suffering, or justify it, or reduce its horror. But, it redeems it.

If we look with eyes of compassion, we can see that humanity is one, not just in its glories and moon landings, but also one in our pain and vulnerability. No one in this world escapes the Cross, for suffering is everywhere and found in every life. The mother gives birth in pain to a crying child, and a man dies painfully and sorrow is in his wake. Yet Christ on the cross fundamentally gives us hope, for it shows how man can refuse to be broken by suffering, and can turn the worst evil and suffering into their opposites.

In our dark nights and pains, we are posed with questions that will probably never come to us otherwise. When everything seems stripped away and all is dark, one must ask fundamentally: 'Why do we even live?'--'To be or not to be?'. Worthy answers to such questions cannot be found by lazing away in rosy bushes and eternal sunshine. False pretentious desires, pride, and other illusions in our lives are stripped away in the crucible of suffering. Only the hardest rock stands firm and can support our very desire to live in such instances.

The fundamental paradox of life, to me, is what in the world can balance all this sum of pain and misery? One Russian writer poses the scenario of a boy who is ripped apart by the dogs of a nobleman on a whim. What good, he asks, can be justify this evil? Can God be truly good and omnipotent (the old question of theodicy), or does he not exist? Is life ultimately the fiction of an insane conjuror?

There are no facile wordy answers to such questions. Yet Christians remember this man who prayed from his cross for those who have crucified Him, 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.' In his darkest hour, Jesus showed his unbreakable faith in the goodness of the God that has permitted his cruxificion and his love towards the men that have crucified him. 'Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love'. Does misery negate the value of consciousness and life? At the cross, Christ taught us how love and hope need not fail, even in the deepest valley of pain--even in the supreme night, the unconquered wonder of our human spirit can shine forth.

And love and its joy, is perhaps the essence of this spirit.

In the war between darkness and love, it is love that holds the final word. That is the essence of Christian hope: 'The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overpower it.' Yes, consciousness is worth it, for nothing can destroy our ability to give, to aspire, to grow and most importantly, to love--unless we let it.

Whatever our religion and beliefs, may we pray always that hope may never fail in the hearts of all the suffering.