Reflections on the Mess We Live In

My Aunt Muriel died yesterday (Friday). Along with the grief of missing her, her passing kicks up a cloud of other painful memories and feelings that have kept me up in the middle of the night. I expect before I end here to tie this back in to our recent discussions about evil and suffering, but first I'm going to ramble a while. (It's a bit of self-therapy.)

My grandfather immigrated to the United States from Norway 103 years ago--a span of time that seems incredible to me now. He married another Norwegian in America, Anna, and they in a sod house in North Dakota. Grandpa Chris was always a stronger presence in my family's life than she was because Grandma Anna died relatively young, and because he wrote an autobiography through which his story lives still. But I never knew him. When I was 18 months old he returned to his homeland, built himself a house he called Heimatt ("Home Again") and never returned to America. I visited his grave there in 1980.

They had eight children. The first one died very young. My mother was the last born, and Aunt Muriel was second to last. Their Norwegian blood was strong; all of the other seven lived (or are still living) well into their 80s. They have all been tremendously fine people. The three daughters all became nurses. It was around the time of World War II, an era when not all women took on careers, and few fields were open to them, but nursing was among the most challenging that the world of that day offered. The men went into real estate, insurance, machine work, and one of them became a preacher. We were a close-knit extended family, holding frequent family reunions at the house he built after moving the family just south of Flint, Michigan. That was where my mom mostly grew up, and the house stayed in the family until a few years ago. The next generation of us all went into productive and respectable fields of work.

That's what makes the next fact so bizarre: there were 22 of us cousins, 18 of whom are still living. One died of natural causes. Two were murdered.

My cousin Jeannette was jogging alone in a park in Lansing, Michigan, 20 years ago. It was an awful mistake, and she came to a horrifying end at the hands of a very brutal man. The crime went unsolved for a full 15 years, and when they identified the murderer he was already serving time for another rape. The case was covered as a documentary by the A&E cable channel's "Cold Case Files" show. I didn't see the show until I happened on it, alone, in a hotel room, on a business trip. I don't recommend you have an experience like that when you're alone. My actual cousins re-enacted the search for Jeannette, and there were interviews with her mother--the same Aunt Muriel, which is why the memory re-surfaces now--and my cousin Joe, Jeannette's brother. It was chilling.

Much more recently, 18 months ago, another cousin of mine was walking his dog in an upscale, gated neighborhood of Orlando. A car drive by at an excessive speed. Brian shouted at them to slow down. They stopped the car, and one of them got out and shot him for it.

I used to live in Orlando, and I still go there frequently for business. I saw Brian in the hospital three times. The first time I hardly recognized him through his edema. The second time he was out of the coma, but unconscious the day of my visit. The third time he was doing amazingly well, seemingly recovering, and we had a marvelous time together for about two full hours. The community put on a fund raiser for him and his wife, who had her own serious health problems.

But his strength never returned, and his body never recovered its ability to make red blood cells. About three weeks ago he contracted a catastrophic blood infection and succumbed within hours. The shooter was never identified. If he ever were and it went to trial, the defense would surely argue that after 18 months Brian's death could not conclusively be tied to the gunshot; but as far as I'm concerned he was murdered. How strange, how awful that our family would have experienced two (essentially random) murders!

If you were keeping count, you've noticed we have lost one other cousin. Beth also died violently, but it was at her own hand. I was the relative who lived closest, so I had the horrible privilege of walking through the next days and weeks with her husband. Just moments after she died, I was on the phone to her home, to accept her invitation to Thanksgiving dinner. (The line was busy--with her husband's 911 call, as I was to find out later.) I devoutly wish I had called just 10 or 15 minutes sooner. It might have come out different. It might not have.

As you can see, this still keeps me awake nights sometimes. The world is a mess. The question of evil and suffering is hardly academic for any of us. Every family has its own different and unique pain, and who am I to say that it's worse for some than for others--yet surely it is, especially when victims of serious oppression or major tragedy are considered. Still, there are few who decide it is so awful that the pain outweighs the good and is not worth bearing any longer. (Some obviously do.)

How God works through pain to accomplish his ends is mysterious. I recall, though, what went through my mind after Jeannette's death: he, too, knows what it's like to have his own Son die brutally, unjustly, horribly. He is with us in it. He is not distant, and the problem of pain is not academic to him, either. That is one reason I give him my love and my worship.

Final in a series:
1. Solved: The Logical Problem of Evil
2. What is "The Problem of Evil?"
3. Is God Likely, In View of Evil?
4. Can Evil Be Made Good?
5. Fences Around Evil
6. Reflections on the Mess We Live In

Posted: Sat - June 3, 2006 at 03:15 AM |

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Reflections on the Mess We Live In

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson