Living the Questions

AM Psalm 80 • PM Psalm 77, [79]
Jer. 7:1-15 • Rom. 4:1-12 • John 7:14-36

As I write this Reflection I am hearing that our country has passed the 500,000 mark in deaths from COVID. What does that mean to me? The newsman tells me that it is more deaths than we experienced in WWI, WWII, and Vietnam combined. I don't think I can get my mind around this number,but when I see individual families talking about the loss of their loved ones it touches my heart. When I read the prophets such as Jeremiah in one of today's readings I wonder what is God's role in the pandemic? In the Old Testament prophets were constantly warning the people that God was going to punish them for not doing God's will. This thought gets at the question of how involved God is in what is going on in the world. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God let disasters happen?

When I meditate on this question I am left with Mystery. Some people when presented with a life-threatening medical diagnosis ask, "Why me?" Others may respond, "Why not me?" The rain certainly seems to fall on both the just and the unjust. When life gives us lemons some are able to make lemonade. Others of us are left with a fruit "that is impossible to eat" (to borrow from Peter, Paul, and Mary).

In lieu of being able to offer profound answers, let us turn to Ranier Maria Rilke for solace:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the question now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

May we keep all those families who have lost a loved one to COVID in our thoughts and prayers. May God bless them and keep them.

Written by Nick Cole

...who, on his good days, celebrates living in the questions.