The brother kept yelling "I did this" as I opened the door to one of the hospital family consultation rooms. Maybe you have sat in a room like this and received some not-so-good news. Rooms such as these tend to be basic. A few not-so-comfy chairs, a drab paint job, and odd abstract artwork on the walls.
I had asked the family members, who had been seated in the ER waiting area, to follow me to the family room. I told them that the doctor wanted to give them an update on how their loved one was doing. The family gathered up their belongings and nervously began to follow me. The family consisted of two adults, a baby, and two girls. One of the girls was the daughter of the patient that the doctor needed to give an update on.
She was a cute little girl. Probably about four or five years old. She had messy wavy short blond hair and green eyes. She was wearing a pale pink shirt with little white flower prints and a matching pair of pants. She had a pair of Crocs-style pink shoes that looked like they had seen all kinds of outdoor adventures. She was seated next to the only calm adult presence in the room, the patient's sister-in-law, who had her baby and daughter seated with her as well. Once the family was gathered up in the room, I left to go get the doctor.
In my work as a chaplain, I am often present in the worst moments of people's lives. I have stood in the room as medical staff delivered devastating news to family members. I have witnessed the sacred moment when babies, children, and adults take their last breath. One of the unique aspects of my work is that it offers a constant reminder that life is a precious gift that could be gone at any moment. I don't know if I have always appreciated life as a gift or viewed getting older as a privilege. Yet my chaplain work is a constant reminder that we came from dust and to dust we shall return.
I walked back to the trauma bay area. I found the patient's doctor and let him know that the family was in the room. The patient was not doing well. He had been seriously injured and all medical indications were that he would not survive his injuries. The bleeding in his brain was such that it was nonsurvivable.
The doctor and I walked back to the family room. The doctor sat down and compassionately stated the dire medical case to the family. The patient's brother did not cope well. He ran out of the family room and began to yell "no" repeatedly as he ran down the hospital hallway. The other adult, the brother's wife, and the patient's sister-in-law sat quiet and started to make phone calls to other family members. At one point she had the patient's mother on the phone and told her the dire news while she was driving! The patient's mom almost crashed her car!
Before the doctor spoke with the family I had asked if I could stand outside the room with the patient's daughter. Yet, the brother wanted her to stay, and the sister-in-law offered no objection. You could watch the little girl's face dart back and forth between the various adults in the room. She watched and listened. You could see that she was taking in with all that was being said.
All of a sudden the little girl blurted out, "My Dad is going to die!" She began to sob uncontrollably. The brother, who had since reentered the family room cried out, "Her Dad is gone man! This is not right! She is going to grow up without her dad! No way! I can't deal with this!" and then ran back out of the room into the hospital hallway. The daughter continued to sob uncontrollably. I moved and sat next to the little girl. I handed her some tissues that she quickly used to blow her nose and wipe the tears from her face.
Throughout the next couple of hours, the patient was moved to an ICU room where he would eventually pass. Before the patient passed a few other family members had made it to the hospital and tearfully visited with each other and the patient. One family member, the sister of the patient, sat for a while with the patient's daughter. She didn't say much. She mostly just cried with the little girl and promised that things were going to be okay and that her father was "going to heaven."
After the patient passed the family slowly gathered up their belongings and slowly walked towards exiting the hospital. I watched the little girl as she continued to sob as she walked out of the hospital. I wondered how this moment might alter the course of her life in negative and positive ways.
Maybe you too have a worst-day-ever story. All you have to do is live long enough and you will acquire more than one worst-day-ever story. Suffering and pain raise all kinds of questions and doubts. Horrible moments can change the course of our lives for better or worse. Heartbreaking moments in life also expose our theology to the things happening in our lives. What happens when what we believe is challenged by what we are experiencing?
When pain and suffering occur in our lives most people emotionally and intellectually run toward certainty. They might say things like "God is in control", "God has a plan" or "Everything happens for a reason." In the worst-day-ever situations, we are grasping for anything that helps us make sense of what has happened. Yet what do we mean when we say, "God is in control" or "God has a plan"? Was it God's plan for babies to be born in such a way that they are unable to live long after they are born? Was God in control when a family traveling in a minivan had their tire blow out, crash and the mother killed? That is a true story by the way. What kind of sick sadistic plans is God making?
Other kinds of suffering and pain don't involve the worst-day-ever situation. A type of suffering occurs when going to work involves horrible leadership. Much of what passes as leadership in many companies (from fast food restaurants to Fortune 500 companies) is warmed over high school drama with an HR department. There are family systems that create suffering for children from physical abuse to unattainable expectations to apathetic parents that can cripple a person in adulthood. The suffering and pain we have all experienced are traumatizing. Who doesn't have trust issues? Who hasn't had a sleepless night due to work-related stress? Who hasn't walked into some family gatherings with a raised heart rate due to knowing the words, looks, and attitudes that might come their way?
Here is the deal. When we talk about suffering and God being in control, we tend to assume that in some fashion the suffering we are experiencing is punishment. We are being punished because there is a lesson to learn or some aspect of our lives that needs to change to realign us with God's plan. I have stood next to grieving parents, who have just watched their hours-old newborn baby pass away, and someone tells them "God just needed another angel." What!? What kind of a sadistic person takes the life of a newborn just to add it to their collection of angels? I have confidence that if God wanted more angels, he could manufacture more without taking the life of a baby!
What all of this leads to is what theologian Dorothee Sölle would call worshiping the executioner. Sölle offers, I believe, thoughtful theological criticism as pain being something that comes from God in the form of punishment. As Sölle, in her book Suffering, points out:
Affliction strikes even the pious. How can it be punished in that case? The training value of suffering is negligible. The reaction to the real or imagined creator of suffering is pictured in the Old Testament itself as wrath, and ill temper. Suffering produces fruits like curses, imprecations, and prayers for vengeance more readily than reform and insight. Suffering causes people to experience helplessness and fear; indeed intense pain cripples all power to resist and frequently leads to despair. It is precisely the Old Testament that corrects again and again theological theories based on the premise that God sends suffering. “For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground; much more people bring trouble on themselves as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:6f.) . . .1
In part two we will explore what Solle means by worshiping the executioner and then explore what might be some ways to reorient ourselves to God and the suffering we experience.
1 Dorothee Sölle, Suffering, trans. Everett R. Kalin (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 15
Comments
Post a Comment