Tags
I have often been struck by the beautiful passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that wrestle with the “problem of God.” Too often in our culture, faith is nothing but a flight from the brutal realities of life. Indeed, I believe that faith does not lessen the stress and burden that is laid upon the soul, but rather we are stretched to the point of overwhelming pain. Faith that refuses to stare directly at the truth of the world is nothing less than an opiate, a drug. Perhaps this is why there are so few saints. Perhaps faith was given to us in order that we might dive into the pit of darkness that surrounds our existence and not use faith as a pair of earplugs to shut out the chilling screams of the world. These are my thoughts–tears on a Friday.
In closing, I wish to leave a passage written by Archimandrite Sophrony from his book entitled, St. Silouan the Athonite (pgs. vii-viii):
Revelation concerning God declares, ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.’ How difficult for us mortals to agree with this! Difficult, for both our own personal life and the life of the world around us would appear to testify to the contrary.
Indeed, where is this light of the Father’s love if we all, approaching the end of our lives, in bitterness of heart can lament with Job, ‘My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart…If I wait, the grave is mine house…Where is now my hope?’ And that which from my youth my heart has sought secretly but fervently—‘Who shall see it?’
Christ Himself attests that God is concerned for all creation, that He does not ignore a single small bird, that He clothes the grass of the field, and His concern for people is so incomparably great that ‘the very hairs of our head are all numbered.’
But where is this Providence that is attentive to the last detail? We are all of us crushed by the spectacle of evil walking unrestrained up and down the world. Millions of lives that have often hardly begun—before they are even aware of living—are strangled with incredible ferocity.
So whyever is this absurd life given to us?
And lo, the soul longs to meet God and ask Him, ‘Why didst Thou give me life?…I am surfeited with suffering. Enveloped in darkness. Why dost thou hide Thyself from me? I know that Thou art good but wherefore art Thou so indifferent to my pain?’
‘Why art Thou so…cruel and merciless toward me?’
‘I cannot fathom Thee.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Amen.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. Amen.
Under The Heavens 
Yes…faith and with it comes the great hope…