© by Bill Farrelly
You might recall me saying that I often feel hypocritical about my faith, at one moment happily explaining why I cannot not believe and the next wondering how on earth someone could hang onto their faith under horrendous circumstances.
I’ll get right to the point. This musing is prompted by my having read about a woman who was attacked by a chimpanzee and lost both hands, her nose, lips and eyelids and may be blinded and suffering brain damage.
There are millions of other similar examples of unimaginable suffering and I ask myself: how would I cope if that were me or my beloved wife, children or grandchildren?
Perhaps it will not surprise you that my first response to that story was this silent prayer: ‘Please, God, let her die.’ Indeed, that may remain my prayer.
There was an email doing the rounds recently – you may have seen it – a video of a man, who appears to be about 40, and who perhaps was a victim of thalidomide and as a result was born without arms or legs. His inspiration, his joy, his apparent zest for life had me in tears.
Would I pray for the death of a baby similarly born today? I think the answer is no, I would not. But then I ask myself, supposing that baby was also blind or deaf or both? How much would that change the equation? And what if he or she were also brain damaged?
I think I would be on my knees begging God to take that little child in His arms and spare him or her – and me – the dreadful pain and suffering that undoubtedly lay ahead. If you are the parent or carer of such a child (or adult) you might rightly put me in my place and show me up for the shallow person that I am.
I know that all life is God-given. But is hard to see God’s will in a child be born grossly handicapped or that a woman be maimed as has the woman I referred to earlier.
And yes I acknowledge how terrible suffering brings out the best in us. I do not want to live in a perfect world or see an end to suffering – especially my own. Had I not suffered I would have gone to my grave unfulfilled. Nor do I want to live in a world of constant suffering – especially an unbalanced one where one half suffers and the other half thrives.
I abhor the idea of genetic engineering and especially any interference to produce so-called ‘perfect specimens’, including what to you and me may be imperfect specimens. For example you may recall there have been instances of deaf parents wanting their embryo manipulated so that the child would be born deaf.
But the simple truth is, I fear there is only so much suffering I can accept and that my faith is contingent on how gentle God is to me. In other words, I’ll be faithful, God, provided you don’t test me too far.
But what would be left if I stopped believing? What would I hang on to? What would stop me from despairing and perhaps taking my life?
I said a moment ago that I did not want my own suffering to end. I should explain: I am not a masochist. There have been many, many times when I pleaded with God to end my heartache, my loneliness or some physical pain. But, as I have also mentioned elsewhere, it was suffering that motivated me to break an addiction that may have caused the breakdown of my marriage, it has been suffering that has helped me to become more patient, more tolerant, more empathetic, more real and fun-loving even. It may be suffering that leads, one day, please God, to a reunification with my wife.
But still I ask myself: how much suffering would I be willing to take on?
At the risk, once again, of being sacrilegious, it seems to me that people who suffer as that woman is suffering, experience more physical pain than Christ would have on the Cross. I understand of course, that Christ’s real agony was the weight of our sins.
God, I believe; help my unbelief.
bill.farrelly@yahoo.com.au
