Here is something for us to think about in
this new year.
An acquaintance of mine recently lost her
youngest son in an auto accident. The fact that it was his fault is irrelevant,
as is the fact that the mother is a very gentle and nice person, quiet and
inoffensive, and has already suffered much in her life: divorces, and the
murder of her eldest son about a decade ago. This essay is not about “why God
lets the innocent suffer.” This woman, while not a fundamentalist in any sense,
is deeply religious.
Though I am not a close friend, this woman
and I have had several meaningful conversations. I mostly listen to her as she
talks. But that is what she needs. I do not need her help, but she benefits
greatly from having people listen to her seriously, which is what I do. It is a
kind of altruism, and like most altruism, it feels good: it makes me feel good
to do something to help.
I did not know about her recent tragedy
until her car pulled up alongside me as I walked to the bank to pay my
mortgages. (I always do this in person and get a receipt, since at this bank they
are not very careful with their paperwork.) She considered it a miracle that
she happened to encounter me right at that time. She was headed to the same
bank to put a freeze on her dead son’s bank account. She said she thought she
would collapse without someone with her, someone who took her seriously and
supported her. And there I was.
We went to the bank together and, as soon
as I paid my mortgages (which for some reason is always a complex process for
the poorly-trained tellers) I joined her in the office where she met with a
bank representative. I did nothing except to remind her to write down what the
number on the piece of paper the representative gave her was for; in her
condition, she would easily have forgotten what it was for, just as I would have.
Otherwise, I just listened, as she drove me the short distance to my house and
we sat in her car.
She said again that it was a miracle that
she had encountered me. She said I could call it synchronicity—an unusual
coincidence—if I wanted to. She practically begged me to keep up my faith in
God. She made it sound as if she would not be able to face the immediate future
if I did not believe in God.
I was not able to confirm to her a belief
in a God who answers prayer. A more general spirituality—I can admit this
possibility. But, even if a woman who has just lost her youngest son begs me to
believe in a personal God, I cannot consent. It is not right for her to demand
this.
But neither did I have a right to
criticize her. It would have been wrong for me to tell her that there was no
good reason for her to believe in a personal God.
That is, religious belief is not merely a
personal matter. Though each person has to decide for himself or herself what
to believe, we must not hurt other people who believe differently.
At first glance, it might appear that we
hurt one another—she by asking me to believe, me by refusing. But the
relationship is not symmetrical. I am older, I am the man, and she is a
vulnerable (slightly) younger woman. I am the professor, she is the office
assistant (not of my department). But she is the one who suffers, while at the
present time, I am the one who is mostly happy. I am the one with the surviving
daughter, and a thriving and perfect granddaughter (by any objective
measurement). It would be much, much more wrong for me to tell her that she
should not ask me to believe, than for her to ask me to believe. We might have
been unfair to each other, but she was the one who had more to suffer from it.
I said nothing about this, and never will say anything to her about it.
She asked me to reconsider my skepticism.
That was, I believe, a fair request. That evening, I rethought my reasons for
not believing in a personal God who is in control of what happens in the world.
I was serious about this. I wrote about it at considerable length in my
personal journal. I did not change my mind, but I told her I would consider it.
I did. I think this is what we owe to the people in our lives.
Part of the process of reconsideration was
the synchronicity she considered a miracle: encountering one another at just
the right time. But how many other potential synchronicities have not
occurred? She considered this synchronicity to be something that God willed.
But, while we sat in her car, another car turned onto the small street and
drove past. This sensitive woman was nearly overcome by surprised grief. There
were only two cars in town that looked like this one. One was the car destroyed
in her son’s accident. This was the other one. I did not say anything to her,
but I had to consider: was this a synchronicity overseen by the devil?
or by a God who wants to make people like this fine woman squirm with agony?
Two thousand years of Christian theology
has no answer to this. All I know is that, whether evangelical Christian or
skeptic or anything in between, we should not just blab out our opinions
without considering their effect on the people who need us. This is especially
true for people, like me and like many of you, who are in positions of power.
Victims, I believe, do not need to meet as high standards as do leaders.
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