where is God when I hurt...a journey

Going through all the boxes, piles, files and memorabilia of my active ministry in the local church - including two seminary internships - has reminded me that my image of God has changed significantly during this sojourn. That's a good thing. 

When I started out, I was a brash, earnest young man who thought he was a theological hot shot embracing liberation theology and sanitized Marxism. I KNEW that God was in the cries of the poor and their struggles for social justice - and made damn sure others knew this, too. Or at the very least, had to listen to me pontificate. What I didn't know then - and what an old Reformed pastor from Czechoslovakia  called me out on during my ordination examination - was where was God in other types of suffering? After presenting my statement of faith and spiritual autobiography, he said: "You have an immature and naive theological anthropology, Mr. Lumsden. You have romanticized the human condition and lack any discernment about the holy in the midst of our pain." After a long silence he followed with this conclusion: "Work on it!"

Like all bright, privileged, straight white bourgeois guys, his critique that afternoon offended me. After all, by my senior year in seminary, I had worked with Cesar Chavez and the Farm workers union on boycotts, electoral campaigns and contract administration. I had secured my Conscientious Objector status during the Vietnam War and spent a summer organizing African- American pulp wood cutters in rural Mississippi into a union, too. And let's not forget my year long urban internship in multi-cultural Jamaica, NY. I had Alinsky training under my belt, been arrested for social disobedience, studied the non-violent work of both Dr. King and Mohandas Gandhi, chaired my denomination's world mission Council of Theological Students, studied in Costa Rica, journeyed to Nicaragua, and been elected co-chair of my seminary student body. So yes, I was offended by the dismissal of this wizened old refugee from Eastern European communist totalitarianism. Offended and perplexed.

That began my ongoing consideration of the Cross and what those far wiser than I have written about atonement theology. In those early days, my Czech interlocutor was right: I did not know where to find God in human suffering. In the Exodus and struggles for freedom, yes: God was the driving force. But where was the holy in the holocaust? Or in broken hearts? Or racism? Sexism? Greed? Violence? Alienation, abuse, or addiction? I had no idea and no words to frame my quest. Warren Lee, the Dean of the Doctor of Ministry program at San Francisco Theological Seminary, used to say: unless you know how to share something of God's real presence in the midst of human brokenness, you better get out of ministry in the local church because you'll do more harm than good.

In Saginaw two physicians chose to send me to Hazelden to learn how to be present in ministry with alcoholics. This is where I began what I call a ministry of presence: being compassionate, present and real with those who are hurting. Not only does this give form and flesh to the words of God, but helps those locked in addiction share their burden - and that is the key to healing. Compassion, inner strength, quiet and non-judgmental listening alongside time tested tools of recovery gave me my first insight into the question: where is the Lord in my pain? 

In Cleveland, I was led to three additional resources: 1) the writings of Henri Nouwen; 2) the testimony and love of some of the recovering alcoholics in my congregation; and 3) the quiet ministry of presence and contemplation at Fr. Jim O'Donnell's Oasis House. Each gave me words to use, each gave me time and love, too so that I began to experience God's presence in the midst of my own pain. Fr. Jim taught me to meditate: "Before you can do any real good, man," he said, "you have to know God's grace from the inside out. So what I want you to do and practice is simply sit quietly two times every day until you sense that you are resting in the hands of God." It took about 45 days and I was often reluctant, but one night I knew I was resting within the love of God. My fears and anxieties were still real, but there was also a love greater than my brokenness. Through confession, prayer and silence this presence grew to be my foundation. A little book Fran Apltauer gave me, Can These Bones Live?, explored the traditional theologies of atonement, too. Experientially and intellectually I was finding a way to know God's compassion in the middle of my own anguish. Like one beggar telling another where to find bread, I could now share a few clues along with my time and love.

Adolfo Quezada, my spiritual director and counselor in Tucson, took me deeper. When I was trapped in the throes of workaholism - filled with anger, anxiety and resentment - he once asked me, "Do you know God is present with you in these hard times? Or do you think God is only there when life is sweet? Fun? Or happy?" I knew the right answer, but had to confess that I was still pretty naive about trusting God in my suffering. So, as is often the case, I had to go completely into my pain and learn from it before I was able to say, "Yes, the Lord was with me even in the valley of the shadow of death." Sitting meditation was essential. So was Luther's affirmation, "I have been baptized." That is, I have been loved by God forever and trust beyond all evidence that God will not abandon me. In time I felt God's presence again after walking for nearly a year by faith alone. Richard Rohr and Thomas Keating became my new mentors as I lost and found God again in the Sonoran Desert.

And Richard Rohr, Frederick Buechner, Henri Nouwen and René Girard continue to take me deeper now that we have returned to New England. Diana Butler Bass' wisdom has been essential, too. Today, for example, she quoted Rohr in his book, Falling Upward: “If you try to assert wisdom before people have themselves walked it, be prepared for much resistance, denial, push-back, and verbal debate.” I resisted my old Czech colleague until I ran out of gas and was floundering in confusion. Rohr continues with words I have found to be transformational when they become lived:

All healthy religion shows you what to do with your pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust and the undeserved—all of which eventually come into every lifetime. If only we could see these “wounds” as the way through, as Jesus did, then they would become sacred wounds rather than scars to deny, disguise, or project onto others. I am sorry to admit that I first see my wounds as an obstacle more than a gift. Healing is a long journey. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become cynical, negative, or bitter. This is the storyline of many of the greatest novels, myths, and stories of every culture. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children.

He then concludes by saying:

Unless we can find a meaning for human suffering, that God is somehow in it and can also use it for good, humanity is in major trouble. Because we will suffer. Even the Buddha said that suffering is part of the deal! We shouldn't try to get rid of our own pain until we’ve learned what it has to teach. When we can hold our pain consciously and trustfully (and not project it elsewhere), we find ourselves in a very special liminal space. Here we are open to learning and breaking through to a much deeper level of faith and consciousness. Please trust me on this. We must all carry the cross of our own reality until God transforms us through it. These are the wounded healers of the world, and healers who have fully faced their wounds are the only ones who heal anyone else.

What I have learned - and more importantly experienced - is that the reality of God is that of a gracious love who is present with us in our suffering. Not above or beyond, but fully within it. This is what the Cross demands I acknowledge. God is with me. God is also at work within me to let love transform my wound into something holy. Rohr puts it clearly:

I believe—if I am to believe Jesus—that God is suffering love. If we are created in God’s image, and if there is so much suffering in the world, then God must also be suffering. How else can we understand the revelation of the cross? Why else would the central Christian logo be a naked, bleeding, suffering divine-human being?

Jean Vanier, my current mentor in the journey, speaks of the littleness of God. Not a triumphal conquerer, but a loving, small presence that invites us to love our brokenness so that God's love can bring us a measure of healing from the inside out. And as love grows within us, we share God's almost insignificant

but transformational grace by living for love, too. In other words, "somehow partners with the Divine. At our best, we surely must be. But our rational minds will never fully surrender to this mystery until our minds are led by our soul and our spirit." (Rohr)