Good Morning and happy Friday, digital neighbors from across the interwebs! I hope this week has treated you well; and if it hasn’t, I hope the coming weekend will bring you some relief—or at least release from it. If that isn’t possible, I do pray you have the means to find support in bearing your burdens, whether through a good friend, a caring community, or your belief in a Higher Power who is personal. (And if you’re wondering, “If God doesn’t give a crap, why bother?”—fair question. Keep reading.)
The problem of evil, of course, challenges believers to wrestle with the reality of so much brokenness in this world. How can a good God allow so much evil—and for so long? It is, in my view, the single most serious argument against the existence of a God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, and all-loving. So much suffering makes us wonder whether one or more of those attributes must be false. My best answer is that God’s permissive will allows it, while His salvific will continually invites us to trust and seek Him. For people buried under pain, that can feel like the hardest part of faith. In those moments, others—especially fellow pilgrims and disciples—need to show up. We listen, empathize, support, and encourage.
I’m not a fan of the line “God never gives you more than you can handle.” I don’t believe God sends misfortune into our lives; He permits it. That distinction can still feel brutal. I don’t believe God is micromanaging your life, but He is micro-observing it—sending subtle, humble graces that are easy to miss when we’re drowning in sorrow or anger. Those graces are meant to be lifelines: a nudge, a brush with the Divine, a quiet reminder that He does, in fact, care and pay attention.
I actually think God allows us to be stretched beyond our limits all the time. That stretching is often an invitation to truly trust Him—not just to claim we do and then turn on Him the moment adversity hits. The Bible is full of stories showing how quickly we distrust, accuse, abandon, or ignore God. Yet He chastises and immediately offers a path back: reconciliation, redemption. God did not create us to damn us. He created us to know Him. In knowing Him, we grow to love Him and seek His will—even though He needs nothing from our service or worship. It’s hard for many to accept that serving and worshiping God is ultimately for our good, not His.
All of this musing was prompted by watching A Christmas Carol last night. It may be the greatest Christmas story of change ever told. Scrooge is trapped in wealth and bitterness—rich in coins, profoundly poor in humanity. I watched the 2009 Disney version (with Jim Carrey), and it’s among my favorites. I still give a slight edge to the Patrick Stewart one, but that’s neither here nor there. The dreams, the spirits, the relentless confrontation with his life—it’s all about change and reassessment. I’ll either watch or listen to a few more versions before my Christmas celebrating is done. This year the season stretches all the way to January 11th!!! (Yes, I’m already hearing Spinal Tap in my head: “This one goes to eleven.”)
“Mankind was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Marley says no rest or peace will come to him unless Scrooge is saved. As he departs, Scrooge sees countless ghosts bound by the chains of their sin and indifference—a truly purgatorial moment. Scrooge will either be purged this very night or damned forever. Then comes the moment with the Spirit of Christmas Present, when the robe is lifted and two wretched children are revealed:
“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
Both Ignorance and Want are dangerous, but Ignorance is worse. It breeds indifference; indifference breeds hatred; hatred unleashes endless varieties of crime and violence. Ignorance frees us to hate on unimaginable levels. The Spirit warns Scrooge—and us—to care about ending both Ignorance and Want. But is more essential to end ignorance than want.
With the final Spirit, Scrooge’s heart finally cracks open, and we all know how the story ends. It remains one of the greatest tales of transformation ever told. Have a blessed Friday, dear neighbor!
Snow child - Kateryna Hliznitsova - Unsplash
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
