“I have borne your terrors with a troubled mind…your
terrors have destroyed me…darkness is my only companion” – Psalm 88
It was not
my intention to write a series on Theodicy this spring before my chaplaincy internship this
summer at a local hospital. But, in
retrospect it was a wonderful practice before entering the rooms of suffering,
angst, and despair. It prompted me to
identify my theology, and this summer I practiced it, and I am still in the
process of doing theological reflection from what I have experienced.
This summer
was difficult. Chaplaincy was difficult
for me; seeing people suffer all the time was difficult for me. It was difficult for a few reasons: 1) I am
an empathetic person, so it is easy for me to feel with another person, whether
suffering or joyous, 2) Theologically, it was a time to really reflect on the
darkness where God is present. We
believe as Christians, that God is Love, God is present everywhere, and while
there are worse places of suffering than a suburban hospital, the hospital did
provide a doorway into the raw, real experience of grief, loss and abandonment
that is a part of our world…and so this summer I had to bear the tension
between the reality of a very broken world, and the belief that God is present
in this suffering and pain, and that ultimately there is hope.
I have
always known hope to be persistent, this summer I actually experienced places
where hope had been defeated. I was invited to these dark places. I remember being with a man who had tried to
commit suicide six times, who was non-verbal at the point of my visit. When I told him I was a chaplain, he
desperately wanted to hold my hand, draw it close to him and just lay there
with my hand in his. I was there for 10
minutes in silence, holding a man’s hand who wanted to die, did he want hope
too? That I don’t know, but above all he
wanted connection and release from his soul pain. Another tough encounter was an elderly woman
with dementia, who outlived her entire family (her son had died two months
prior); she had no one. Her cancer had
invaded her spine making her a paraplegic, she was alone, wasting away, lost in
her memories because what this reality offered her was intolerable. Another elderly woman was alone because
she was abandoned. Her family, along with
all her money to care for her, was nowhere to be found. In silence she waited for the state to provide a place to call
home, a place to die eventually alone in her pain.
From these
experiences to experiences with bloodied victims in the trauma bay, to addicts
whose bodies were failing because of their disease, to being told about sexual
abuse, domestic violence, and elderly abuse, I understood what it meant to be
frail and limited. I could not fix
anyone. I witnessed unquenchable suffering
and pain; and though I have studied it, I have read about it, I have seen it from
afar, the experience is much different from the theory, and I admit it caught
me off guard (I have heard the same of the experience of dying). “Oh this is what it is, this is what it is like” was a thought that I had
many times in patient’s rooms either while they were talking to me about how many
months they had to live, or how they didn't know how they would continue on with their
lives with this new diagnosis.
How are we
all so unprepared for it? We know
suffering and death happens, but it always happens to them, and when it strikes
us how woefully disarmed we are! I have
seen people cope with suffering in a variety of ways. I spoke with
fundamentalist Christians who justified it as a test from God, or explained a
family members’ death away by saying that they must have committed some sin
they did not ask forgiveness for. I have
been with atheists, who love spiritual care, who are honest about their
regrets, the pains of the past, the fears of the future…they seemed capable of
holding the “whole” of what was happening.
I know they were holding it because they were the ones who were
crumbling. And who wouldn’t
crumble? Persons of faith may be able to
stand back up, but to never crumble?
At the end
of this internship, we had a graduation and I got a certificate. I could not help but think to myself “How
American Church?” I went to those in
despair, to those in pain, to those who are sick, to those who are abandoned
and I get a certificate. I am giving
away my certificate to the Church board who sent me to the Chaplaincy
Internship; they can have it. Because
what I am left with is something that has altered my being, my understanding of
ministry, my understanding of God, and my understanding of our humanity. I am left cut open.
I leave with
Psalm 88. It needs no exegesis, no
biblical scholarship, it is prayer, plain and simple. And a prayer that I have been praying a lot.
And a prayer I hear in the souls of those who suffer:
O Lord, my God, my Savior, by day and night
I cry to you.
Let my prayer enter into your presence;
incline your ear to my lamentation.
For I am full of trouble; my life is at the
brink of the grave.
I am counted among those who go down to the
Pit; I have become like one who has no strength;
Lost among the dead, like the slain who lie
in the grave,
Whom you remember no more, for they are cut
off from your hand.
You have laid me in the depths of the Pit,
in dark places, in the abyss.
Your anger weighs upon me heavily, and all
your great waves overwhelm me.
You have put my friends far from me; you
have made me to be abhorred by them; I am in prison and cannot get free.
My sight has failed me because of trouble;
Lord, I have called upon you daily; I have stretched out my hands to you.
Do you work wonders for the dead? Will those who have died stand up and give
you thanks?
Will your loving-kindness be declared in the
grave? Your faithfulness in the land of
destruction?
Will your wonders be known in the dark? Or
your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?
But as for me, O Lord, I cry to you for
help; in the morning my prayers comes before you.
Lord, why have you rejected me? Why have you
hidden your face from me?
Ever since my youth, I have been wretched
and at the point of death; I have borne your terrors with a troubled mind.
Your blazing anger has swept over me; your
terrors have destroyed me.
They surround me all day long like a flood;
they encompass me on every side.
My friend and my neighbor you have put away
from me, and darkness is my only companion.
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