Of course, when I'm reading, I'm also escaping from my relationship with God. From howling "Why?" all over again. I'm so tired of crying out "Why?" to God. I've cried out to God over and over again for years now, because one thing after another happens, and my heart breaks in still another way. Each January 1, when people wish each other a happy new year filled with blessings, I shudder. I know too well that every year some new crisis will fall on our heads and crush us to the ground one more time. I fear that eventually one new blow will crush us and we won't be able to get up from that one.
Often I've said that God brings all things to the good for those who love Him. I still believe that. But I don't necessarily believe that in this lifetime I will see the good things that come from the bad things that happen to those I love. I trust they will occur because God is nothing but goodness and good is more powerful than evil. But only Heaven will reveal the beauty that will emerge from the tangled messes that we see here on this earth.
Daily I ask God "Why?" Daily the tears come. Yet, after all the whys and all the shuddering and all the fears of eventual collapse, I still wander back to God. I still mentally touch Jesus' pierced hands. He asked "Why?" too. Maybe that's why I echo Peter's words to Jesus when others in the crowd had left him. Jesus asked his Twelve - quite poignantly, I think - "Do you also want to leave?"
Peter replied "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - is the One God Who lives within me, breathing His life into me, filling me over and over again with His energy when mine deserts me. For me, Jesus is indeed what he told the crowds and his disciples he is - "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."
I am sure, also, that Jesus sends me much of my reading to challenge me and lift my heart. Recently, in the latest issue of "Sojourners" magazine, there was a reminiscence, "Never Give Up," about Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the black South African charismatic leader who worked to peacefully end apartheid in South Africa, and has since campaigned throughout the world to end racism, war, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and homophobia. The author, Fr. John Dear, recalled visiting the Archbishop at his foundation headquarters in Cape Town in 2014. Tutu was in his eighties, in bad health, yet he planned to leave the next day for Iran, to continue his work for world justice and peace.
"We do not have the right to give up this work," he told Fr. Dear. "Our sisters and brothers are suffering around the world, so we have to keep working for peace and justice till the day we die." And he spoke of the millions of squatters living in total poverty around Cape Town and elsewhere. Fr. Dear asked him how he kept going.
"My favorite prophet is Jeremiah. Do you know why? Because he cries a lot!...I cry a lot too. I cry a lot. I cry every day. But think how much God cries! We have a God who weeps. God weeps because we don't get it. We don't understand that we are all brothers and sisters. So I cry a lot and always have. But I also laugh a lot too." With that, Fr. Dear tells us, the Archbishop "let out an uproarious laugh."
I read Archbishop Tutu's words several times, meditating on them. This is what came to me:
First, yes, I also believe God cries a lot. God is perfect love and mercy - why wouldn't He? A friend reminded me of this: didn't Jesus cry several times, especially when his friend Lazarus died? And so God also cries for me and for those I love when we suffer. I must treasure God's tears for me.
Second, I must not cry only for myself. I must not crawl into my cave and think only of me. Cry, I told myself, for the people of Haiti, poorest of the poor, living in huts, with no government-designed exit routes to safety even though their government knew of the hurricane coming several days in advance. Hundreds died there! Cry, and find some way to help.
Or - cry for the earth, cry for the rising temperatures and dying, bleached coral, polluted oceans, and millions who will face famine. Cry, and find some way to help.
Or - cry for a country so intellectually and spiritually impoverished that a man runs for President who traffics in fear and hatred and is a self-confessed sexist who talks about women as if they were objects - all attitudes diametrically opposed to the peaceful, loving heart of Archbishop Tutu.
It's only when I trust in God, hope in His Word, and rise to weep for my brothers and sisters and do His work, that I can begin to feel fed by the bread of life and feel my energy and enthusiasm flood me again.
Trust in God also makes me relax, capable once more of laughing. Laughing is the greatest vote of confidence that we can give God and life. Laughing, as Archbishop Tutu laughed, says that we know that God is with us. In fact, he also has spoken of God smiling:
"But God can only smile because only God knows what is coming next."
God knows the further tragedies that all of us will have to endure. But our loving God also knows the good that will eventually come to us as well: the peaceful times of love and friendship; the sunrises and sunsets; the lights of Christmas and scents of Spring lilacs; the moments of joy in a job well done; the acts of loving sacrifice; the times of courage when we stand up for what is right; the end to war and apartheid, the discoveries of lifesaving medicines. Our time of final justice and mercy in heaven.
Archbishop Tutu, who has known many times of terrible devastation, can keep going because he knows the truth about hope: "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness."
There will come a day when eyes empty and transparent with suffering will open upon light, light sent to them by God. And so every day I choose to say with a heart still trapped in darkness,
"And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in You."