I went to the Wilson County Fair last Friday night. My friends and I were in the grist mill, talking to a handful of men that always hang out at the grist mill. As we turned to go I realized one man hadn’t introduced himself. I asked him his name. He told me his name and said I probably recognize him from being on television. I started to make a joke about him being a tv star, but he went on to tell me why he was on tv so much lately.
Earlier in the summer he was involved in a tragic accident. He was doing a good deed for a family. The family’s five year old son was running along side his pick-up truck pushing his bicycle as the man was pulling into or out of the driveway. Somehow the little boy switched sides without the man knowing it and he hit and killed the child with his truck.
The other men sitting around in the mill said, “He has a real heavy heart right now.” So what do you say? The only thing that made sense to me to say was “Sometimes this world just doesn’t make any sense” as I held the man’s hand and looked into his eyes. Trying for just a few moments to be present to a heavy heavy heart.
I said it two or three more times as the man poured out his heart to me. I also hugged him and said “God is always with us.” My way of wanting him to know he was surrounded by love even as his heart was breaking.
I don’t know if invoking God was the right thing to say because of all the bad theology (to me) about God when something bad happens. Your meditation has given me the opportunity to share this experience I had – and affirm what I believe as stated in your last sentence.

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Erie, I am sorry for your loss. Just when we think the world makes sense, a good person’s life is cut short while we watch another person bent on evil appear to succeed. When we are touched personally, we feel adrift in a reality where nothing turns out the way we think it is supposed to and it seems so unjust, unfair, unbelievable. My husband was killed by a drunk driver at age 30. He was the best man I have ever known, next to my father who was diagnosed with cancer and died within a month at age 70. I am now living a long goodbye as I care for my mother. I have no answers, only love, hope, and faith in a God of eternal justice. Henri Nouwen ponders the meaning of suffering in his book “In the Name of Jesus.” Right after Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved Him, Jesus said, “When you were young you put on your belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go” (1 John 21:18). The way to true life is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross. Nouwen understands that “this may sound morbid and masochistic, but for those who have heard the voice of the first love and said yes to it, the downward-moving way of Jesus is the way to the joy and peace of God, a joy and peace that is not of this world.” Not of this world. That is the key. What we do here is vastly important, but it is love that is eternal and not of this world, a love that we cannot comprehend, a love that surpasses our sorrow and the horrors we see before us daily, a love that asks us to trust love even when we cannot see, feel or make sense of it. Life is unfair. There is no way around it, but Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). That is my hope, my only hope. Nouwen explains that “Jesus has a different vision of maturity; it is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go.” There are so many places and times in my life I would rather not have gone, but I trust because I love…and love endures forever. Keeping you and your cousin’s family in prayer.

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Erie: sorry to hear of your loss. You said “the key is to recognize that ultimately you can never make things make sense” rang a bell. I often hear people say “life is not fair but God is good”. The goodness of God and His love,joy and peace resides in us and He is our Comforter.

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I always analyze situations and come to the conclusion that in some situations “this and that” does not make sense. After reading Erie’s writing I found out that he confirms my thinking and I am relieved by it. I read his writing the night before I went to bed and the next morning I felt such a flood of peace with this hymn resonating within my being. ” When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot Thou has taught me to say it is well, it is well with my soul. For me , be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live: If dark hours about me shall roll, no pang shall be mine, for in death as in life Thou will whisper Thy peace to my soul.”

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