Dear Sugar,
I’m writing this from my little couch/bed in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Egelston Children’s Hospital in Atlanta.
My husband and I just found out that our 6-month old daughter, Emma, has a tumor and she is having brain surgery tomorrow. I am scared that I will lose her. I’m scared she could be paralyzed or her development will be messed up and she will have a hard life. I’m scared they will find out the tumor is cancerous and she will need chemo. She’s only a little baby.
People have poured all their thoughts and prayers into us right now but to be honest, God is farthest from my mind. I’ve never been super religious but now I find myself doubting His existence more than ever. If there were a God why would he let my little girl have to have possibly life threatening surgery, Sugar? I never in a million years thought that my husband and I would be in this situation.
I want to ask you to pray and all your reader’s to pray, to a God maybe I’m not sure I even believe in anymore. Pray that my baby will be okay. And that we can walk away from this and forget it even happened. I have written you before about different things, which now seem so stupid and silly. I just want to get through this with my husband and daughter and look back and thank God that everything is okay. I want to believe in Him and I want to believe all the prayers being said for us are working.
Abbie
Dear Abbie,
I have been thinking of you and Emma and your husband nonstop since I read your email. I woke at 3 a.m. this morning and was not able to fall back to sleep because I’m so worried about you all. Please know I’m holding you in my deepest thoughts and wishing the best for Emma.
I would like to publish your letter and my reply on Thursday, but I want to be sure you sent it to me with that intent. If you didn’t—if you meant it as a personal email to me, that’s fine and I won’t publish it. If you do want me to publish it, I want to make sure you’re okay with including the identifying details—Emma’s name, the name of the hospital, and such. If not, let me know and either you or I can alter those details.
Sending you love, light, blessings, strength.
Love,
Sugar
Dear Sugar,
Thank you so much for replying. I would love for you to publish my letter. If you would like you can also add this part to let everyone know that the surgery went well. The doctors think the tumor is benign. They had to leave one small, tiny part because it was attached to a blood vessel and one wrong move could have paralyzed her permanently. Emma has recovered so well that even the doctors seem a bit surprised. We’re most likely going home tomorrow.
At this point I am hoping there is a God and that the power of prayer is what kept my little Emma safe and well. We had people all over the country praying for us. I hope that everyone will continue praying that the tumor will not come back and we can walk away from this. All my life I have been on the fence about God’s existence. The hope He does exist and hears our prayers are something I think everyone has in them. To find out my 6-month-old daughter had a tumor (cancerous or not) just put me right back to the part of me that says if God existed bad things wouldn’t happen.
I want to take her surgery going well and the good news we have received so far as a sign He does exist, but I also don’t want to assume such a large thing from what might be a coincidence. Whether He is there or not, or whether or not the prayers really work, I will keep praying for her speedy recovery and I hope all of your readers will join us in praying for Emma and all the children here at Egleston and everywhere else who go through such sad things early in life.
Feel free to post our names and locations. It won’t bother me at all. I hope you will still run my letter. I would love to read what you have to say about the existence of God. I can’t decide if I should take a leap of faith and believe since Emma is okay and attribute it to God.
Thank you for thinking of us. You are a wise woman and to have your support and caring means a lot.
Abbie
Dear Abbie,
I know everyone reading these words shares my relief that Emma came through her surgery so well. I’m sorry you’ve had to endure such a frightful experience. I hope that the worst of it is over and that you will be able to “walk away from this,” as you put it, and to keep walking—far and fast—into a future that does not contain the words tumor and surgery and cancer.
I agonized about whether to publish your letter. Not because it isn’t worthy of a reply—your situation is as serious as it gets and your doubts about your faith in God are profound and shared by many. But I couldn’t help but wonder who the hell I thought I was in daring to address your question. I wonder that often while writing this column, but I wondered it harder when it came to your letter. I’m not a chaplain. I don’t know squat about God. I don’t even believe in God. And I believe less in speaking of God in a public forum where I’m very likely to be hammered for my beliefs.
Yet here I am because there I was, finding it impossible to get your letter out of my head.
Nearly two years ago I took my children to the Christmas pageant at the big Unitarian Church in our city. The pageant was to be a reenactment of the birth of Jesus. I took my kids as a way to begin to educate them about the non-Santa history of the holiday. Not as religious indoctrination, but as a history lesson.
Who is Jesus? they asked from the back seat of the car as we drove to the show, after I’d explained to them what we were about to see. They were four and nearly six at the time. They’d heard about Jesus in glimmers before, but now they wanted to know everything. I wasn’t terribly literate in Jesus—my mother was an ex-Catholic who spurned organized religion in her adult life, so I had no religious schooling as a child—but I knew enough that I was able to cover the basics, from his birth in a manger, to his young adulthood as a proselytizer for compassion, forgiveness, and love, to his crucifixion and beyond, to the religion that was founded on the belief that Jesus, after suffering for our sins, rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.
After I finished with my narration, it was like someone had served my kids two triple shot Americanos. Tell me about Jesus! became a ten-times-a-day demand. They weren’t interested in his birth in the barn or his philosophies about how to live or even what he might be up to in heaven. They wanted only to know about his death. In excruciating detail. Over and over again. Until every ugly fact sank into their precious bones. For months I was compelled to repeatedly describe precisely how Jesus was flagellated, humiliated, crowned with thorns, and nailed at the hands and feet to a wooden cross to die an agonizing death. Sometimes I would do this while making my way in a harried fashion up and down the aisles of the hoity-toity organic grocery store where we shop and people would turn and stare at me.
My children were both horrified and enthralled by Jesus’ crucifixion. It was the most appalling thing they’d ever heard. They didn’t understand the story within its religious context. They perceived only its brutal truth. They did not contemplate Jesus’ divinity, but rather his humanity. They had little interest in this business about him rising from the dead. He was not to them a Messiah. He was only a man. One who’d been nailed to a cross alive and endured it a good while.
Did it hurt his feelings when they were so mean to him? my son repeatedly asked. Where was his mommy? my daughter wanted to know.
After I told them about Jesus’ death, I wondered whether I should have. Mr. Sugar and I had managed to shield them from almost all of the world’s cruelty by then, so why, for the love of God (ahem), was I exposing them to this? Yet I also realized they had to know—their fascination with Jesus’ agony was proof of that. I’d hit a nerve. I’d revealed a truth they were ready to know. Not about Christianity, but about the human condition: that suffering is part of life.
I know that. You know that. I don’t know why we forget it when something truly awful happens to us, but we do. We wonder why me? and how can this be? and what terrible God would do this? and the very fact that this has been done to me is proof that there is no God! We act as if we don’t know that awful things happen to all sorts of people every second of every day and the only thing that’s changed about the world or the existence or nonexistence of God or the color of the sky is that the awful thing is happening to us.
It’s no surprise you have such doubt in this moment of crisis, sweet pea. It’s perfectly natural that you feel angry and scared and betrayed by a God you want to believe will take mercy on you by protecting those dearest to you. When I learned my mom was going to die of cancer at the age of 45, I felt the same way. I didn’t even believe in God, but I still felt that he owed me something. I had the gall to think how dare he? I couldn’t help myself. I’m a selfish brute. I wanted what I wanted and I expected it to be given to me by a God in whom I had no faith. Because mercy had always more or less been granted me, I assumed it always would be.
But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t granted to my friend whose 18-year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver either. Nor was it granted to my other friend who learned her baby is going to die of a genetic disorder in the not-distant future. Nor was it granted to my former student whose mother was murdered by her father before he killed himself. It was not granted to all those people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time when they came up against the wrong virus or military operation or famine or carcinogenic or genetic mutation or natural disaster or maniac.
Countless people have been devastated for reasons that cannot be explained or justified in spiritual terms. To do as you are doing in asking if there were a God why would he let my little girl have to have possibly life threatening surgery?—understandable as that question is—creates a false hierarchy of the blessed and the damned. To use our individual good or bad luck as a litmus test to determine whether or not God exists constructs an illogical dichotomy that reduces our capacity for true compassion. It implies a pious quid pro quo that defies history, reality, ethics, and reason. It fails to acknowledge that the other half of rising—the very half that makes rising necessary—is having first been nailed to the cross.
That’s where you were the other night when you wrote to me, dear woman. Pinned in place by your suffering. I woke up at 3am because I could feel you pinned there so acutely that I—a stranger—felt pinned too. So I got up and wrote to you. My email was a paltry little email probably not too different from the zillions of other paltry little emails you received from others, but I know without knowing you that those emails from people who had nothing to give you but their kind words, along with all the prayers people were praying for you, together formed a tiny raft that could just barely hold your weight as you floated through those terrible hours while you awaited your daughter’s fate.
If I believed in God, I’d see evidence of his existence in that. In your darkest hour you were held afloat by the human love that was given to you when you most needed it. That would have been true regardless of the outcome of Emma’s surgery. It would have been the grace that carried you through even if things had not gone as well as they did, much as we hate to ponder that.
Your question to me is about God, but boiled down to its essentials, it’s not so different than most of the questions people ask me to answer. It says: this failed me and I want to do better next time. My answer will not be so different either: to do better you’re going to have to reach. Perhaps the good that can come from this terrifying experience is a more complex understanding of what God means to you so the next time you need spiritual solace you’ll have something sturdier to lean on than the rickety I’ll-believe-he-exists-only-if-he-gives-me-what-I-want fence. What you learned as you sat bedside with Emma in the intensive care unit is that your idea of God as a possibly non-existent spirit man who may or may not hear your prayers and may or may not swoop in to save your ass when the going gets rough is a losing prospect.
So it’s up to you to create a better one. A bigger one. Which is really, almost always, something smaller.
What if you allowed your God to exist in the simple words of compassion others offer to you? What if faith is the way it feels to lay your hand on your daughter’s sacred body? What if the greatest beauty of the day is the shaft of sunlight through your window? What if the worst thing happened and you rose anyway? What if you trusted in the human scale? What if you listened harder to the story of the man on the cross who found a way to endure his suffering than to the one about the impossible magic of the Messiah? Would you see the miracle in that?
Yours,
Sugar
80 responses
Sugar, you just keep raising the bar and then vaulting over it like an Olympic athlete. Amazing, beautiful, complex, gut-wrenching, true. You.
What if you allowed your God to exist in the simple words of compassion others offer to you? What if faith is the way it feels to lay your hand on your daughter’s sacred body?
this may be the most real thing I ever read.
My heart goes out to Abbie and her family, and every parent who has to cope with a seriously ill child. Sugar, your response was thoughtful and lovely, as always.
I’m not especially religious, but I wanted to recommend a book that has helped me, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold Kushner. It explores very similar ideas to what you’re saying, Sugar, but is able to delve into them even more deeply over the course of the book.
Sending love to Abbie and Emma, and thanks to you for posting the letters. They’ll be receiving even more love now from your readers.
In the midst of your own not-believing, you gave this woman the gift she needed: an unrelenting belief.
Thank you 🙂
Dear Abbie,
There is no greater pain than to watch the suffering of your child and have no control of the outcome. The feeling is so uniquely profound, words can only paint it’s outlines. Of course, you know that now. There is no escape, no rescue. The only way is through.
My son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes right after his third birthday. On that day, a child about the same age as he died of cancer just a couple of doors down from our hospital room. I walked by the child’s family at least a dozen times that day as they sat in the hallway mourning. My heart was already broken and it broke even more for them. Then I would walk into our hospital room and there was my son- his eyes open, his skin warm.
I don’t believe in God. However, I was reminded that we are surrounded by the sacred. And that there are darker places a heart can go.
You are surrounded by the sacred, Abbie. We all are. Our culture would transcend it’s ills and suffering if it would remember that.
–
Dear Sugar,
Thank you.
“To do as you are doing in asking if there were a God why would he let my little girl have to have possibly life threatening surgery?—understandable as that question is—creates a false hierarchy of the blessed and the damned. To use our individual good or bad luck as a litmus test to determine whether or not God exists constructs an illogical dichotomy that reduces our capacity for true compassion. It implies a pious quid pro quo that defies history, reality, ethics, and reason.”
That is the most deeply Christian thing I have read in awhile – thanks!
Thank you to everyone for your kind words. Emma is doing so much better and we just found out that we are expecting another baby. I am not ready but I feel more then ever now that no matter what unexpected things may happen, we will pull through, together as a family. Sugar is a truly amazing woman who is compassionate and intelligent and I feel so lucky to have had my letter responded too!
Thank you for this answer Sugar.
My daughter died 89 hours after her birth.
The idea that God saved this child and not mine out of some sense of fairness or faith or the number of people praying or anything is nothing but the cruelest thing to imply. And to people reading this: When you say that, that is exactly what you are implying, and those of us who were not so fortunate hear it that way.
I totally get it, on a human level, when people are like ‘…and then GOD INTERVENED and saved my aunt/dog/bank account.” I have been guilty of expressing similar sentiments in the past.
Please grow up, people. That would be the miracle.
“It fails to acknowledge that the other half of rising—the very half that makes rising necessary—is having first been nailed to the cross.”
I have read this sentence over and over and over and I don’t think I will ever finish reading it. I *am* a spiritual person, I do believe in God (although I don’t believe in religion), and I believe you may have just changed something essential in my faith. For the better.
There is a sarcastic saying in the health field. “When a child lives, it’s God’s work, when a child dies, it’s the doctor’s fault.” Sugar you are amazing! I love your work but I just wanted to point out that on top of faith in God or whatever, how about people put a little faith in those who spend their lives working to heal us?
Thank you, Sugar. This was absolutely the clearest, most unsullied definition of christianity (yes, small ‘c’) I’ve ever heard. It is what faith in life is.
Thank you.
What if you listened harder to the story of the man on the cross who found a way to endure his suffering than to the one about the impossible magic of the Messiah? Would you see the miracle in that?
Even if the first words that come to mind after reading your writing, Sugar, are “Oh my God!” I know you know what I mean.
I was so angry at God for taking my 46 year-old father, I vowed I would never pray again. And I have made my raft, as you so beautifully suggested, out of the divinity of human love. That something larger is something actually smaller. What I didn’t realize then, but I see now, is that my prayers *were* answered, just not in the way I expected. As you say, something smaller can also become something larger! My prayers were answered by the grace of people, who suffered and loved just like I did.
Thanks for such meaningful, exquisite, gorgeousness.
This is amazing and lovely – raising the bar yet again, dear Sugar. Like everyone else, I’ve had my challenges through life and I’m sometimes asked why I don’t go to church to find comfort, etc. I remember something my Dad, who is 85 now and has been disabled since he was 38, said when I asked him why he wasn’t mad at God. He said “I was, but me and God have sorted things out. I don’t need a church for that, so I don’t go. But you have to remember, God isn’t a magic fairy who only grants wishes”.
God is who and where we find God. What we do with what we find is the important thing.
I know Sugar does not comment on these unless the author writes to clarify, but I do hope she reads the comments.
I’m not a christian. I’m happily pagan now, though I was raised in a deeply, evangelical christian family that had more hypocrisy than the Pharisees ever did.
Still, the thought that there is something bigger than ourselves, connecting all of humanity in a tight bond of compassion and love for fellow-man, is comforting in the cold nights of suicidal depression, or being ill with worry about one’s family, or being terrified and in the hospital due to some faceless persons’ selfishness and violence.
I’ve always firmly believed that diety does not choose who lives and who dies. It is not some kind of russian roulette, where one person has to be the unlucky one. I believe that the spirit is a very real thing and it -chooses- to be bound to a body in order to either learn a lesson itself, or to teach those around it how to be better, kinder, more open, more loving, and more accepting. Sometimes it doesn’t happen in one lifetime. Sometimes all those spirits have is a few moments of life- a week, a year, even just five minutes. But their echoes follow us through the years and perhaps even through many lifetimes, quietly and subtly reminding us of the preciousness of even the shortest of lives.
Sugar, I am Abbie’s mom, Emma’s grandmother. I have no words that can remotely express my gratitude to you for your response to Abbie. This time we were the fortunate ones. Emma came home, but I am acutely aware that others did not and will not. You say your are a nonbeliever, but you have shown more grace, love, and dignity in these words than many believers I know.
I’ve noticed questions of faith arise when thing are going very badly but almost never when things are going well. Human nature I guess.
God didn’t promise everything would be easy, just that we wouldn’t be alone during the hard times.
Abbie, I have a younger brother who had spinal surgery at Egleston many years ago and did far better than the doctors expected, too. And now I work with kids with cancer and other chronic illnesses, trying to help them truly live even while battling life-threatening conditions. So, I have an inkling of your situation and the vast spiritual questions it brings, but only an inkling. I have two things to tell you. One is that prayer works, regardless of belief or doubt – research has shown it is beneficial – so never feel guilty about asking for or relying on prayer. The second is that whatever/whoever we are created from or by, we are made of incredibly strong stuff. In my work I am continually amazed and inspired by the human capacity to triumph over adversity, children in particular. It’s not at all fair that your family has had to face this, but it also isn’t fair, honestly, that Emma has done so well and her tumor appears to be benign when other little ones don’t make it. But, you have the capacity to live your life, whatever comes with it, fully and beautifully.
Sugar, I do not know how you keep blowing me away week after week, when I always think your column can’t get any better than this. Dear Sugar is, quite literally, wonderful.
I want to second what Emily said about the doctors. When I was 6 months old my Mother was in a terrible car crash with a UPS truck. She was hospitalized for 7 months, and when she eventually recovered and was able to walk again she became very religious. She credited God with her survival.
But I credit the doctors, they are the ones who put her back together after the car crash. They are the ones who replaced her knee 10 years later so she could walk without pain. They are the ones that found her lying on the floor and took her to the ER when she had a massive stroke at 55. Doctors and modern medicine are what have allowed me to keep my Mom for this long.
All of the work that so many people have done, so we could find tumors, treat them, create replacement knees. It is amazing, and it is the work of human ingenuity, our desire to make our lives and the lives of others better. That is what I have faith in.
I’ve had my moments of disbelief…and actually, they weren’t in moments of despair and hardship…they were during the normal, day to day…a sort of “What if? What if I’m wrong?” And then I realize that it’s silly and truly doesn’t matter.
Whether you believe, don’t believe, or are on the fence, the fact is, none of us are “right” and none of us are “wrong.” What happens beyond this earth (or not) can be questioned, discussed, contemplated, etc for years and years…and each generation will continue to question as much as the generation before and so on. The only questions you should ask yourself are “What feels right to me? What makes sense to me?” And what everyone else says or believes is their choice. Whether there is a God or not…that question can only be answered from within. I’ve seen that whatever makes sense to me is usually what I find to be MY truth.
Abbie, Emma, and family: It is so wonderful to hear that Emma is doing well. I hope this pregnancy goes well and that you are blessed with another healthy, happy baby. Best of luck to you and your’s.
As one commenter said, “God didn’t promise everything would be easy, just that we wouldn’t be alone during the hard times.”
People suffer. We all suffer. As Shandra put it, “The idea that God saved this child and not mine out of some sense of fairness or faith or the number of people praying or anything is nothing but the cruelest thing to imply.” Plenty of evil assholes have thrived and wonderful people died young for anyone to fall back on this explanation. The world and what happens in it is far too complicated for that.
I’m a brain tumor survivor. I’ve had many health issues over the years, but nothing compares to living with a brain tumor. Emma is blessed to have a loving, supportive family. Please do as much research as you can on this disease. It is like no other. Support, education, and a positive attitude are paramount. All disease is horrible, but we can live without most body parts. They still haven’t come up with a prosthetic for the brain. Sorry if this isn’t making sense – I don’t know – another one of my many deficits from the tumor. And please, people, when you see someone who appears to look normal and have a normal life but sometimes oddly behaves, perhaps they have a brain issue. Even a little push on your brain from a small tumor can wreck havoc on your life. Let’s try to be more compassionate to all – we don’t know their entire story.
Thank you, Abbie, for reaching out. Thank you, Sugar, for reaching back. I needed to read these wonderful words.
I was raised by a Presbyterian and a Jew who felt that I should know the basics of their religions but not much more than that. Now, at 33, when asked if I am one or the other, I merely say I’m neither…I’m simply…confused. I have railed at God more in my lifetime over silly things than I have thanked him for the important ones. Even this past week, I “screamed” at Him (Her? It?) for over an hour because the man I loved chose another woman over me. After reading Abbie’s letter and Sugar’s response, I feel so silly for doing it. What is a lost relationship compared to the loss of a child? I realized I needed that scapegoat. I needed to believe that, despite any mistakes I have made, that someone else was responsible for my unhappiness.
Faith is funny like this; it strengthens when things are going well and it weakens when things go badly. We want to believe that someone is always looking out for us and our loved ones, despite the horrors we see around us every day. Some days, however, it’s just too hard.
Abbie, I am so happy that your daughter is well. May your futures together be better and brighter for it.
Sugar:
I bow to you and your courage to question everything in the face of another’s suffering.
My coming to believe in a power greater than myself, whom I choose to call God, has taken over 4 decades. I had to fall flat on my face to see that it was me who separated from God all along and not the other way around.
The fact that you are wrestling with the notion of God in this posting implies there is a relationship with one. We don’t give this much attention to an entity we have no feelings toward.
I’m not trying to convince or sway you in any direction, just naming what is here. It’s quite Divine and beautiful.
My heart is full for Abbie and her husband and daughter AND for each one of us who has been touched by the gifts that have come from one human reaching out to another in a time of need.
Sugar, you are a miracle. Thank you again. You are truly amazing.
“It creates a false hierarchy of the blessed and the damned. To use our individual good or bad luck as a litmus test to determine whether or not God exists constructs an illogical dichotomy that reduces our capacity for true compassion.”
Bam! She nails it. The article does speak to something about maturity, not settling for easy answers or a straw figure to praise/blame/give our power away to. It’s heart breaking, especially if we have grown up with books, parents, doctrine that offered stories we took to heart. It is so very much easier when there is someone/something else to blame and a clear logical narrative to look to.
Thank you so much for such a lovely reminder of so many things. Great writing has the ability to align thoughts and beliefs you already have in such a way that you are saying to yourself, “Uh huh!”, “Yes!”, and even “Amen!” while you are reading. That’s what I did with today’s column.
For those who are suffering, which I have gone through recently, I have one piece of advice – let people love and serve you, even those you don’t know well. People want to be a blessing, and in return you are a blessing to them.
Sugar, you never fail to amaze me. Thank you for your wise, incredible, heartfelt words.
This column reminded me of a Buddhist parable about a grieving mother and her suffering: http://www.khandro.net/mustardseed_1.htm
Thankful, Abbie is not a grieving mother.
nothing new to add here, but just to say that i love this so much.
“To use our individual good or bad luck as a litmus test to determine whether or not God exists constructs an illogical dichotomy that reduces our capacity for true compassion. It implies a pious quid pro quo that defies history, reality, ethics, and reason. It fails to acknowledge that the other half of rising—the very half that makes rising necessary—is having first been nailed to the cross.”
Sugar,
I’m a Christian pastor. As I read the words above, I was stunned. This is what I try so hard to teach and preach every week. You have expressed the very heart of what I consider REAL faith (as opposed to the sugary, stupid crap that’s usually served up and/or portrayed in the media).
You say you don’t believe. What or who is that you don’t believe in? An Old Man in the sky who dishes out rewards to his favorites and hellfire to those who don’t ‘get it?’ A pale, Caucasian Jesus, meek and mild, who was nothing more than a sacrificial lamb for an angry, inscrutable tribal deity? You know what? I don’t believe in those fictions either. The God I worship — the Jesus I love — are awful, beautiful mysteries who give up their secrets when I least expect it. Usually in the midst of terrible suffering.
Today I was visiting with two old men in their 80s, both of whom are terminally ill. I told a stupid joke and they both forgot their awful plight for a moment and laughed unself-consciously. Joy flashed into the room and God was suddenly there in something as simple as a corny joke and a smile on a dying old man’s face. I was humbled, disarmed, and inspired, all at once.
Thank you for being a vessel of grace, every time you write. You are a wonder, Sugar.
Abbie, you and your family will be in my prayers. For what it’s worth.
This song ran through my head while reading this: http://youtu.be/2mOrhpSWTec
Thank you, Abbie and Sugar, and best of luck to you and your family, Abbie.
Sugar you should know that your description of God and faith is so insightful I’ve been a Christian my whole life and I agree with everything you’ve written and more importantly you gave me something new to thinking about, thank you.
I’m really glad Abbie’s daughter is all right. As a mom, I could palpably feel her terror.
Anyone interested in these spiritual issues should really read Emily Rapp’s blog, “Little Seal” (http://ourlittleseal.wordpress.com), which often focuses on the spiritual misconceptions people have to face up to when a tragedy strikes. Emily’s son, Ronan, has Tay-Sachs. She’s a beautiful writer, and she writes with a great deal of spiritual wisdom about the truly hard, complex issues.
So I’m an immense fan of Sugar, and her answer here is full of heart and kindness as usual. But I feel a bit like, because of her empathy for Abbie, she failed to fully call her on the kinds of issues that Shandra and Gretchen and others so wisely raise here in the comments section. I mean, no one wants to point a finger at a mom whose child is sick and tell her how offensive her religious beliefs are, of God as a favor-granter to those popular enough to have a bunch of people praying for them or as a reward for someone’s special worth. But the fact remains that this belief system IS offensive and deeply problematic: not just to those who have lost children or other loved ones, but really to the whole of human history. Sugar answered from a vantage point of wanting to help Abbie, and with full acceptance of her for where she was at, and this is part of why we all love Sugar so much–her seemingly bottomless capacity for unconditional understanding. Yet the fact remains that Shandra and Gretchen are right.
When we say that we WANT to believe our children were saved because God decided to personally reward us for prayers or faith, that is tantamount to saying that the millions of children in, say, the Holocaust, or Rwanda, or Chinese orphanages, or Afghanistan, are not worthy of good lives (or life at all?) because . . . well, for any number of crazy reasons. They don’t have the right people praying for them? They’re not the right religion? They’re just not as Important as you and your children are because you don’t know them? To me, this exemplifies a great deal of what is wrong with Christian Thought as it’s practiced in organized religion, and particularly in the United States. It’s a form of narcissistic, self-absorbed superiority passed off as faith and “values.” I don’t believe in god myself, but I do think any true spirituality begins with a recognition that everyone on the earth has at one point been an innocent baby, and that we are all equally worthy of any god’s love. To truly embrace that belief requires the terribly difficult acceptance that, since so many people lead lives of great suffering and misfortune, God’s love cannot be tied, in any cause-and-effect way, to what kind of life we actually lead in terms of our good or bad luck, and therefore prayer is not about improving one’s lot, but simply for its own sake. Spirituality is not about getting personal favors from the divine because “he likes us better than those other guys over there” or because we are so singlularly deserving.
To all the people who so blithely do believe in God only to question “his” existence the minute something wrong happens in their own lives: did you really never consider any of the other mothers and fathers throughout history who also lost their children, to flu epidemics and genocides and abductions and starvation? Did you really just have no problem believing easy paradigms like “God is good” as long as nothing harsh happened to you? That’s not spirituality, people. That’s kids believing in Santa, and if you’re good you get a present, and if you’re bad you get coal. Grow up, indeed. Any “faith” should take as its first step the acceptance that you are choosing to believe IN FULL KNOWLEDGE of all the human suffering that happens to good people, and somehow struggling to, as Sugar notes, still find the sacred from there.
I see the point being made by Gina, and there is a ton of truth in her overall message. If “fairness” or “worthiness” were a factor in one’s fate, then the atrocities that she cites would never have occurred (e.g., the Holocaust).
However, I think it’s a bit harsh to say that Abbie’s “why me” thinking is “a form of narcissistic, self-absorbed superiority.” Human nature dictates that when your baby’s life is at steak you will have tunnel-vision, focused solely on that baby’s predicament and fight for life. That does not mean that Abbie doesn’t care about the suffering or death of other people. If anything this struggle likely led her think more deeply about the nature of suffering and how it can happen to anyone for any reason or no reason at all. And even if that’s not her immediate reaction, I think it’s okay for her to learn that as an “after-lesson†once the immediate crisis has passed. Right now, what she needs is support and strength to deal with her own family’s situation. And that’s exactly what she got. I do not agree that Sugar needed to “call her out†There’s a time and place for everything. This is the time for compassion.
Jenny, to a large extent I agree with you. I personally doubt that if someone individually came to me in crisis, as Abbie did to Sugar, that I would proceed to say to that person the things I said above in the moment. States of emergency feel insular. We all go to that place. No aethiests in a foxhole, and everyone prays on a plane experiencing turbulence, etc . . . we all personalize our own moments of desperation, because they ARE personal.
But I am still afraid of the kind of attitude that Abbie expressed, because–sadly–it’s not just a personal/individual attitude, but has become a widescale cultural one in the United States. Abbie–albeit through no fault of her own, as she is only one person and only accountable for herself, not accountable for the entire human condition–just echoed a lot of what is a devastatingly unfair, harmful attitude that so many Americans seem to hold about religion, and in fact these attitudes are not just harmful in terms of widescale tragedies overseas, but of course also to individual people closer to home: to the neighbor whose daughter was not “saved” by prayer, etc. We see this kind of thing so often in the media, too. It’s just so damn sad and scary. It alarms me. It doesn’t undercut the pain Abbie was in over Emma, or palpable relief over the fact that her one precious daughter is all right after all . . . but it is still somehow relevant, I think.
Sugar is a marvel of compassion. It would not have been her style to take this in another direction. Yet I can’t help but wish that we could hear what someone as wise as Sugar would have to say about the ways this issue of spiritual insularity does culturally impact our world–and, in fact, many limit many people in their capacity for compassion by perpetuating a belief that somehow God’s goodness only need apply to themselves in order to be valid. Perhaps neither Sugar nor I, as we are both professed non-believers, are really even the ones to address this issue. Man, though, I wish it was being addressed more openly somewhere. It’s not Abbie’s fault. But it’s a huge cultural and spiritual disease, and many, many individual people manifest as the “symptoms” of that disease in a way that’s become societally sanctioned. They are taught this by their churches, pastors, even the nightly news and reality shows. Calling out any one of them will not solve the problem, and might just seem cruel. Maybe it’s kinder to just take people where they’re at and not hold any one person accountable. I’m sure Abbie does care about other people’s well-being, is a good friend, a good neighbor, would help someone she knew in a time of need. And yet, it’s also true that change can only begin one person at a time. This is just such, such a limited and limiting idea of any god, or of the world . . . when I hear it expressed, I admit it just knocks the wind out of me.
Sugar has a huge audience, and has such a spiritual way about her, that I think I wanted her to address this less to finger point at Abbie and more because I just ache for somebody whose opinion is heard and valued by so many to really name this issue, and the harm it can do in the world. Although I’m certainly also willing to condede that probably the people reading Sugar–including Abbie, as someone humble enough to seek advice and realize that her own opinions may not always be perfect–are not the core root of this problem, so maybe even that would not really have had the result I craved . . .
We humans somehow have convinced ourselves that we deserve a fair and perfect life. But in fact, we deserve much less, much much worse. Yes, death, injury, and loss are heartbreaking – searing, but though bad happens, it doesn’t discredit in anyway the existence of God. It actually promotes the existence of God. He is our standard for good. Because of God we know and feel deeply the difference between good and bad.
I have not lost a child, but I have felt pain in my young life of 19 years. I know anguish. I know the feeling of rejection and desperation. I have lived in fear. But, even so, I know with all my heart and every fiber of my being that God lives, and that my Savior and heart’s Lover, Jesus Christ has redeemed my life from my sin and depravity. I am confident in the love of a God that created every man, woman, and child in His image. I rejoice in the compassion of God who sent His only Son to be the sacrificial Lamb for the depraved world. We live in a fallen and broken world, with fallen and broken hearts. No one can save themselves. No one can put off dying. No one can avoid pain. But each one of us has the opportunity to choose their spiritual demise – to put their trust in redeeming blood of Jesus Christ or to put their trust in man. Man will disappoint; Jesus Christ never does.
We can’t come up with our own images of God. Words don’t make a God. A human’s compassion doesn’t equate to God. The philosophy that says we can make our own God simply makes our world a fantasy – a hazy place of vague conflicting ideas. If human compassion is God, than what a frail, wavering thing we hold to. I am banking on Something much Holier, Purer, Lovelier – The ever-faithful, everlasting God of the Bible.
May God bless you all, and open your hearts to His message of salvation. May God protect the life of Baby Emma and her parents. May Emma grow into a lovely woman with a heart abounding with love for the God who formed her and gave her life.
You people read WAY too much into stuff. I do not see God as a favor granter. In a time of fear and sadness I simply wrote a letter. And Gina you sound like the religious zealots who make me shy away from religion. So many “christians” are so quick to point out how everyone else is wrong or abhor how people who haven’t yet come to God see things. Thank you for the people who have empathy and understanding. I feel so sad for other people’s suffering and death, I really do. But as a parent, maybe in that moment, only my child’s possible death or paralysis mattered. Also I doubt God often and always have, not just when bad things happen. It is a personal struggle I deal with often and wish to resolve. Perhaps I just need the right, caring, compassionate, real christian to help me find my way. And thank you elliemae. You are the type of christian that makes me smile.
I agree with you, Gina, that it’s wrong (and even un-Christian) to think that God’s goodness need only be applied to the self to be considered valid, but I disagree with you that Sugar didn’t make that point quite clearly. My sense is that she had to walk the line between writing about all you did, while offering support to a woman in her hour of need. (If you are reading this, Abbie, I’m really, really glad your daughter is okay.)
Back to my point. Gina, you wrote “I can’t help but wish that we could hear what someone as wise as Sugar would have to say about the ways this issue of spiritual insularity does culturally impact our world–and, in fact, many limit many people in their capacity for compassion by perpetuating a belief that somehow God’s goodness only need apply to themselves in order to be valid.”
But, in my mind, Sugar did that when she wrote: “Countless people have been devastated for reasons that cannot be explained or justified in spiritual terms. To do as you are doing in asking if there were a God why would he let my little girl have to have possibly life threatening surgery?—understandable as that question is—creates a false hierarchy of the blessed and the damned. To use our individual good or bad luck as a litmus test to determine whether or not God exists constructs an illogical dichotomy that reduces our capacity for true compassion. It implies a pious quid pro quo that defies history, reality, ethics, and reason.”
Anyway, this is not so much to argue with you Gina, as it is to say I think that’s all there in the column and probably it’s not there with the force that you’d like to see because that would have hurt rather than helped Abbie.
Thank you, Sugar, for another mind-blowing read.
Shandra, I’m so sorry for your loss. What you say makes a lot of sense.
If anyone is still looking, there is an excellent blog chronicling a family’s struggle with their son’s fatal brain tumor. It is well-written and heartbreaking.
http://jamescamdensikes.blogspot.com/
Yes, Jay, you’re right. It would have hurt Abbie–and my words didn’t sit well with her, obviously, which I do find I feel sorry about, even though I feel so strongly about the things I said; I still do feel shitty about it and I do wish Abbie didn’t think I was an asshole or a freaky zealot or whatever, because obviously she does have enough on her mind and enough troubles with this experience without me or other commenters somehow being an antagonist to her. This is another moment to commend Sugar, because running an advice column is not for the feint of heart . . .
Gina, I really get where you were coming from. I didn’t interpret your words as an attack on Abbie. I doubt there’s a single reader of this column who isn’t thrilled by Emma’s recovery and I know you are too. But I also struggle with anger and despair over the way much of our culture talks and thinks about God, so I understand your perspective. I mean, what if prayer chains *did* work? What would that mean? That reprieve is a prize in a kind of popularity contest? That God is swayed by the mob? That the ones who are alone or without many advocates are at a disadvantage with God as well? If you’ve ever loved a child who died, as I have, it’s hard not to be stricken by this idea, and on some level it’s hard not to take it personally.
Abbie,
You said, “Also I doubt God often and always have, not just when bad things happen. It is a personal struggle I deal with often and wish to resolve. Perhaps I just need the right, caring, compassionate, real christian to help me find my way. ”
Please let me know if I can help you. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior ten years ago. These past ten years have not been lined with roses. I’ve had my doubts, but Jesus Christ has overcome them for me. I am by no means, a Christian “who has it all together” . . . I still have yet to meet one who does. 🙂 But, even so, I would love discuss your spiritual doubts, and as a friend, help you wade through them. I am praying for you. Hang in there, and don’t give up yet. 🙂
Thanks elliemae! I might take you up on that offer. One of the reasons I doubt God and religion so much and all the hypocritical christians out there. I live in the bible belt south where everyone is a “christian”. Most everyone goes to church on Sundays and gets props for it. But most of them aren’t REAL christians. Its all for show and the way they treat those around them shows it. I don’t want any part of a religion or a God that has so many people involved that are just horrible to everyone around them! In a way I guess you can say I’ve been put off. The part of me that says, yes God is real, thinks that if someone is truly a christian then you will know only by their actions. I mean we all make mistakes and no one is perfect of course but I know maybe 2-3 people that just inspire me to be a better person because they just have God’s love beaming from them. You can tell everything they do, they do in Christ! Calling yourself a christian doesn’t actually make you one. My husband and I have an amazing life. We are lucky enough that he has a great job, benefits with it, a beautiful house, an adorable daughter and another on the way.. bad things have happened to us before. I did not blame God or anything for those.. but this was my tiny little baby. An innocent baby.. and I just couldn’t help but think if God exists then why is this happening to an innocent child, to any innocent child? It was simply the train of thought that my broken heart took me down. For anyone who is upset over what you are taking as my “view” of religion, you should be compassionate, understanding, and maybe thinking back to a time when you were racked with doubt and needed help finding your way. Although I do value your opinions and views because I definitely did not mean for my letter to seem like “poor me, God give me my way or you’re not real”. I just hope you can understand where I was coming from. I didn’t care about myself, only Emma. If I could have had the tumor and surgery and spared her any pain I would have. Also, we weren’t “popular” to just have everyone praying for us. We just happened to have a lot of people who care in our lives. We didn’t go panhandling for prayers. In fact I didn’t want to tell anyone it was happening but Matt’s brother spilled the beans. I’d like to think that maybe the prayer was more of positive thinking and that that helped more so than the prayers tipping God’s scales in favor us, because I definitely don’t think thats how it works at all. I also DO give recognition to the doctors, as someone said above, as without their skill and them being there at all, it might not have gone as well. I mean maybe I’m not making any sense, but that’s because I truly am confused and always have been about this subject.
Also thank you for all the kind words about Emma! She is doing really well and just has trouble sleeping at night. I think the hospital scared her. She will not fall asleep unless we are in her room with her.
Abbie, I am so glad to hear Emma is doing well. So sad commenters here made you feel defensive for even a fraction of a moment.
The beauty of your love for Emma inspires me. Thinking of you and your family with love.
I guess what bothers me a lot about comments on the rumpus is this: Why do we act as though being writers somehow precludes us from being caring people. Sugar loves people and loves her readers. That’s why she’s been able give so much through the unlikely gateway of an anonymous column. We’re responding to that love, which is very real.
Thank you Stella. The positive comments far out weight the negative though. I think people who have been in that position understand more than people who are simply sitting on the outside and being critical. I hope that they never feel the fear of tumors/cancer/surgery/death etc. Just like I can’t imagine the pain of losing a child so I could never judge someone for how they feel on that. I respect Gina’s view, though I hope she realizes that her attitude towards me and how it seemed I felt might be the exact reason people have those types of views on God and religion. Like I said, my biggest issue with religion is how everyone seems to be a christian and can school the rest of us how we’re wrong, they’re right and all that. If you want someone to truly understand God’s love and sacrifice then maybe the best way to help them understand is to show them. Not berate them. Just saying.
If prayer actually worked to save people from illness or dying, there would be very few ill or dead people, and no misery for anyone. This was a hard lesson for me, and I learned it as a young girl when my brother died.
If prayer worked, the Holocaust would never have happened.
What prayer can do is give some people the strength to put one foot in front of the other and soldier on, and continue to love, and not give up. Religion can give the comfort of like-minded and caring people who band together to help each other (not all churches are like this, but the best ones are).
Personally, I believe in God. And S/He has some explaining to do when I get to whatever afterlife we get, if any.
I feel the lack of my brother every day, even though it’s been more than 40 years. What can possibly make up for that?
Thank you Sugar. I was in Abbie’s shoes 25 years ago. As I went into surgery for a C-section, we did not know if we would be bringing home a baby or not. My daughter did not survive. However, the 4 hours that she lived absolutely changed me forever. It was a huge gift to me. I became a mother, even without a child to bring home from the hospital. My next two babies benefited greatly from the veil being torn from my face of what it means to bring a child into the world and what it takes to be a mother/parent. It takes guts!
I am not a religious person. From the whole process of fear, mourning, dealing with the attitudes/wishes of friends and family, suffering, I grew to feel compassion for every woman who brings a child into the world…including Mary, the mother of God.
I’d recommend “Holy the Firm” by Annie Dillard. I don’t consider myself a super-religious person, but reading that book really brought home what religion in general is supposed to do – basically, the the world is a place that’s entirely separate from any sort of higher power, and if a higher power exists it can’t/won’t intervene, but by spiritual behavior we can bring *ourselves* closer to that power (or broader consciousness, etc). It doesn’t mean that children won’t get tumors, or there won’t be horrible car accidents, or we won’t suffer immensely. Because we will. But most religion, at base, is a guide to dealing with the suffering we inevitably feel. In Christianity, it’s belief in an afterlife and community-building. In Buddhism, it’s detachment and disciplined living. And so on.
Thank you Abbie, for sharing your story, and also for being humble enough to let this lead to a discussion that encompasses but also transcends your own private situation — that’s what Gina is driving at, at heart.
There is this troubling comment from elliemae:
“We humans somehow have convinced ourselves that we deserve a fair and perfect life. But in fact, we deserve much less, much much worse.”
while I generally appreciate the sentiment of being grateful for the miracle of life (which it is), I also think there’s a great danger in adhering to a dogma that essentially equates “the fair life” with “the perfect life”. These two ideas are vastly, vastly different. None of us “deserves” a “perfect life”. The notion that we deserve “much less, much much worse” than a “fair life”, however, is anathema to the deeply faithful and enduring efforts of such movements that those working for social justice commit to, like the devout MLK, Jr., for one example.
Sugar:
Your words give me solace.
Your kindness inspires me.
Your wisdom humbles me.
You make me grateful.
You give me hope.
Thank you.
Behind Abbe’s question about God, of course, is a deep hope that her daughter will be okay; that there may be some type of supernatural power that can intervene and save her from the profound loss that is inevitably experienced by someone who loses a child. Another way to frame the question, that I find revealing and helpful, is “What is the nature of this strange and mysterious power that seems to control our fates. Is this a power that can be trusted? Is this a power that could be described as loving? What relationship do I take to this mysterious force when tragedy strikes my life? How do I live, with a sense of trust, in a world where infants get cancer and die?
Life is what it is. This means that life is an incredible gift to be celebrated and it takes place in a world that is full of deep personal loss and tragedy. Sometimes, it is through the loss and tragedy that we come to experience the joy that can happen on the other side of the loss and tragedy. The story of Jesus that Sugar struggles to tell is exactly about this very happening. In this story, God does not intervene in the rescue of this beloved son. God’s action takes place a bit later in the very midst of a dark cave where those who loved him had given up all hope. After the death of Jesus they experienced an aliveness when they broke bread together and when they walked down a lonely road. They experienced an aliveness as they went about their ordinary lives. It was an aliveness that could not be defeated by death. It was an aliveness that had the final word regarding what took place.
here is my version of the last paragraph…….
Allow God to exist in the simple words of compassion others offer to you and you offer in return. Faith is what it feels to like to lay your hand on your on the chest of your child’s sacred body and know that as much as you love them, God loves them more? The greatest beauty of the day is the gift of light, the shaft of sunlight through your window when you wake up and see a new day. Grace is knowing that the worst possible thing will eventually happened to you, and you will rise anyway. Hope is listening to the story of the man on the cross who found a way to endure his suffering and then fulfilled the impossible prophecy of becoming your personal Messiah? A miracle, is knowing he would die for you again and again, because he has your name written on the palm of his hand. <3 MJD
Something put a lot of hydrogen into a void and threw gravity after it.
Now, billions of years later, there is apparently LIFE ALL OVER THE PLACE!
It sure is beautiful, the cosmos. Maybe God delegates. May IT has a Bureau of Destiny Management, Individual Class. Or maybe not. Prayer is a good habit though it isn’t very useful as a bargaining instrument. I’m so glad it came out well for the little girl.
I am someone who aspires to be a philosopher, and I am not someone who believes in God. That said, I found Sugar’s words beautiful and real. Thank you yet again.
As far as people talking about the American narcissism of “God exists for me,” the question of evil (a common way to talk about this sort of issue in discussions of theology) is a centuries-old problem in Christianity – how do you reconcile the worst parts of our world with the existence of a all-loving omnipotent God? If you read On Free Choice of the Will by St. Augustine, he addresses this very reaction, the response of the bereaved, the primal cry that asks the very question Abbie voiced. And this is a book written in the 4th century BCE.
This is not a new question, but it is a question that so many of us ask, in one way or another. Why do we suffer? Why do our loved ones suffer? How do we move on?
For many, these questions are integral in finding ourselves, our beliefs, our religions. And I think it is a question that, while we should all think about in whatever form it presents itself to us, the answer we come to is a deeply personal one.
I am so glad Emma is okay. Best wishes to you, Abbie.
As with any discussion that involves religion, this one seems to have moved it’s focus away from Abbie and towards individual beliefs and opinions. I love Sugar for her empathy and unwavering authenticity. Her reply to Abbie shed light on our culture and the influence it’s religions have at both the personal and social scale.
There is an author, Daniel Quinn, who has published books and written essays about our culture and its origins. Religion plays a crucial role in the story our culture maintains and in this essay, he explains how.
http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/southwestern.cfm
It’s a good read, even if you ultimately disagree.
Sugar, I’ve rarely read anyone who can write about religion and garner respect from the atheists, agnostics AND religious people in the mix. You’re truly an endless well of compassion, a profound thinker, a great friend (even to those you’ve never met) and, well, a powerhouse of a writer.
As for the your thoughts on the ubiquitousness of the human scale…YES. Yes, and yes. Most of us have spent some time on both ends of that scale (and some of us have been so heavy with grief and loss we’ve felt the scale scrape the floor as it tipped downward.) I agree with Gina–who I happen to know is not a religious freak–that it is dangerous to believe that our “deservingness” should grant us a greater portion of divine love. I agree with Abbie that, in crisis (and to paraphrase, not quote), we rarely give a shit about divine love, unless it will save us and those we love.
I am heartened by Sugar’s ability to accept belief without participating in it. I try to do that myself, though sometimes it’s a struggle. And by sometimes, I mean times like a few minutes ago, when I read elliemae’s comment and remembered how many people are willing to close their eyes to people who actually DO feel that words make a God, and that compassion does, and that man can. Sometimes. And sometimes not, sure. But either way, putting your hands over your ears and saying “lalalalala Jesus will make everything right” discourages, rather than encourages, the compassion that sugar advocates. It allows people to opt out and let God handle things.
To believe with grace in this world, I think, requires more than belief in God. It requires, along with that, a set of behaviors that work toward loving and helping…without pitying nonbelievers. And to be a nonbeliever with grace, in my opinion, means trying to be a shining example that we can be good and loving (and understand what true, deep goodness is) without a particular notion of God.
Sugar….you got grace.
(And, of course, it goes without saying that I’m so glad that Emma is okay. And that I’m so sorry so many children, and adults, and animals even, aren’t.)
The American version of believing in God reminds me of the American version of believing in Hard Work: We often think that if we have enough faith and also work hard enough we’ll be saved from suffering. Then when something bad happens, such as an unexpected illness or job loss, we think it’s our fault for not being virtuous enough, or we try to blame the most convenient deity. Yet the reality is that things happen for a lot of reasons. How we choose to react to those things is where miracles can occur.
God isn’t a great ‘decider’ – deciding who lives and dies and benefits based on how much you love him/ follow this or that moral system/ what kind of day he is having. If I could change one thing about the way religions teach about God, that would be it. God is love, support, strength. Sometimes bad things happen, and yes, sometimes prayer can make a difference – but not because some old white guy in the sky happens to hear it instead of someone else’s prayer. We as humans have to claim our own strength back – strength to go on, strength to deal with what other humans do to each other. If we ask for help, God will help us find the strength to deal with these challenges and overcome our own shortcomings, but he isn’t a father figure who will come in and fix things.
My kingdom for a tiny raft…
@Tina: sending good thoughts and wishes your way.
– Tiny Raft
It is BECAUSE there is no god that we must be there for one another. There’s no magical sky friend who will make everything better, so WE have to make things better, ourselves, with work and care, with sweat and compassion.
“Countless people have been devastated for reasons that cannot be explained or justified in spiritual terms. To do as you are doing in asking if there were a God why would he let my little girl have to have possibly life threatening surgery?—understandable as that question is—CREATES A FALSE HIERARCHY OF THE BLESSED AND THE DAMNED.”
BEAUTIFUL! I have thought this so many times but was incapable of stating it so eloquently! When I think about injustice (as it affects those I love) and the free will of life, how it is good, bad and ugly, I am truly humbled by my place in this world.
But Sugar, why don’t you believe in God? Not criticizing. Just would like to know.
To me, the power of prayer isn’t linked to what it “wins” us, but rather to how the act of prayer can transform us – when we pray, we put faith in something greater than ourselves (even and especially when we doubt) and hope for something beyond our means. In hoping beyond hope, we can find the strength and insight that comes from what some people call “God’s grace”. Only in humbling ourselves can we feel what’s divine within ourselves (and in the bonds between one another) …. Kind of like Sugar’s notion of getting on the floor when you’ve got nothing left, and writing like a motherf-cker. You can pray like a motherf-cker, too.
We are such little specks in the great cosmic dance. At the same time our tragedies and triumphs are colossal. It is part of the paradox . Love to Abbie and Emma and a heartfelt thanks that they are fine. I have a friend that lost a girl to leukemia. I thank the universe that the child had my friend as a mother – she is a brave , strong , largehearted woman. Sometimes those occurrences ARE the real miracles. Abbie and Emma are the miracles for each other. I know that 90% of the moms who read this will know that miracle because they felt it with their own children.
“What if you listened harder to the story of the man on the cross who found a way to endure his suffering than to the one about the impossible magic of the Messiah? Would you see the miracle in that?”
I have been a Christian all my life, through rough and good, and still that sentence gave me chills. You choose your words so beautifully.
@Christa Thank you, my friend! The tiny raft indeed helped
How meaningless life would be if God was responsible for everything that happened. Physical reality is a classroom and we are here to learn. We have been given free will. The angels we encounter in life, like Sugar, remind us of who we really are and assist us on our journey. Thank you Sugar.
That last paragraph is so beautiful Sugar.
Catching up on my reading, running a little behind, but.
This column reminds me of this song.
I Only Pray at Night, by John Fullbright: http://vimeo.com/22354478
I want to relate a similar story briefly:
My son was born premature, with an Apgar score of about 3, he was pale, ashen and breathing belabored after a placental abruption my now ex experienced. As she was all but out of it through the procedure (an emergency c-section that nearly killed them both) and drugged to the hilt from the pain of being forcibly ripped open, I was trying to piece it all together.
As I sat in the NICU looking through the glass at my tiny boy I couldn’t help but think of the doctors, doing what they could to save both their lives, especially that of my son. I recall feeling a slight compunction to pray, I realized it was just a shadow of my upbringing and decided to trust the very human doctors with the task they were trained for.
Many years later when I myself suffered a TIA (or mini-stroke,) I was left lying in a hospital bed for a week, again, helpless to do anything but advocate for my own health and put my trust in doctors who were sometimes less than cooperative.
Instead of both incidents reaffirming or in my case reawakening my faith, I became the proverbial atheist in the foxhole.
Yet I too, asked people of faith to pray for me, those who were “spiritual†to send good thoughts, white light. In many ways this was not for me, but for them. Not for my son, but again, for them. If your faith is what gets you through, or in the event of a tragedy, gives you closure, good for you.
I’m not hedging my bets against there being an afterlife, nor am I living according to a moral code based on biblical texts, yet I appreciate every thought and prayer offered for my fortunes, it is the way people of faith care when they can do nothing else, and it is appreciated to no end.
My experiences did nothing but reaffirm my belief that there is no grand watchmaker fiddling with the gears of my life, but not everyone feels that way, and I’m okay with that.
An absolutely beautiful and heart-rending read is Aleksandar Hemon’s essay, “The Aquarium,” about his 2-year-old daughter’s battle with malignant brain cancer, published in the fiction issue of The New Yorker this past summer.
First, I would like to give my best wishes to Abbie and my hopes that Emma is and will continue to be in good health.
Now I’d like to pose a question: When bad things happen, why do people blame God first, or draw the conclusion that he doesn’t exist? If we brought things down to a more personal context, suppose Emma’s tumor had turned out to be worse than it was. Emma is a little baby. She has never heard of God. Abbie is her rock; her source of love, nourishment and comfort. In her suffering, would Emma deny that Abbie exists, or blame her for the pain and discomfort she is enduring? Of course not. And if the very worst happened and Emma sensed that her life was drawing to its end, would her thought be, “Mommy is taking me, Mommy is killing me”? Never!
Yet that is what so many educated adults do. They say, “God took Mr Smith,” when it is clear that Mr Smith was hit by a bus driven by a tired driver on a double shift. Did God really murder Mr Smith? If he did, then why the hell is his family suing the bus company? God, if you will for a moment allow for his existence, does not ‘take’ people. He does not murder people. He allows life to occur and he allows it to follow its course, warts and all, and that includes death. If Mr Smith was standing there when the exhausted bus driver drifted off, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. God didn’t do it any more than Abbie or you did.
The sad fact is that organized religion has taught us that ‘the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away’ apparently on a whim, and there is no rhyme or reason to it because ‘the Lord works in mysterious ways.’ There, accept that handy arrangement but have faith, and love the Lord with all your heart even if he might be aiming that tumor at your baby or that bus at the love of Mrs Smith’s life. It’s no wonder there are so many sad, confused people who want to believe in a God to help them in times of trouble but are scared to think there might really be one, because what if you piss him off? He’d just as soon take your baby or lover as give you one.
I’m not going to state here what my religious beliefs are, nor will I say I subscribe to any of this. This isn’t an attempt to proselytize or convince anyone to believe one way or another; it is an honest observation of the mixed-up perceptions I’ve heard all life. I can’t blame anyone for having doubts in spite of our basic nature which yearns to reach out to someone more powerful and benevolent than we; someone we hope can right the wrongs and save the children. But it just grates on me every time I hear the same person who can give praise for the miracle of birth turn around and accuse the source of that life of murdering another. It isn’t reasonable! Whatever you believe, use intelligence to balance your emotions and consider the different aspects of what you’ve been taught. Logic just may rear its beautiful head.
All told, I believe Sugar gave the most sensible, compassionate response anyone could have hoped for and I’m glad it gave Abbie comfort along with all the other support she received in her time of need. I may be late with my comment but I hope it is seen and that it makes sense to even one person; just offering another perspective.
Dear Sugar,
I am a Catholic priest. You’re explanation to Abbie of her experience of faith-amid-doubt-amid-faith was brilliant: subtle, nuanced, insightful, penetrating, translucent.
As much as God has been good to me — and he has been, remarkably and consistently — I too have times when I wonder why, if Jesus said all we have to do is ask, our requests aren’t always granted when we need them most. About a year and a half ago, one of my altar servers died from peanut alergies. She was an incandescent human being already at age 12, and one of my favorite people. I stood praying at her bedside with all my faith and all my might, that God would spare her. Although she was not conscious, when I annointed her with the last rites and kissed her on the forehead, calling her name, she shed a single tear. I took it as a hopeful sign that she was returning to us. It turned out to be a gesture of farewell. This splendid soul had apparently already accomplished all that God sent her here to do, because he called her home.
These words of yours ring true for me: “Because mercy had always more or less been granted me, I assumed it always would be.
But it wasn’t.”
I have been given very strong faith, and I thank God that it was not shaken by that sweet
girl’s death. But 18 months later I still feel, at times, perpelexed. I find certain moments in books or movies make me burst out with sudden, brief, unexplained sobs. You deconstructed well the idea we commonly fall into, that if God exists He has to prove it by giving me what I think I need. If we choose to believe, it has to be in ways and for reasons deeper than that. If that’s what are faith is like, our faith needs to grow up.
Your closing remarks seem to me a beautiful description of faith, not in God, but in humanity: in the goodness, strength and power available to us in the natural realm. I think you err in saying that can be God for us — human compassion is not God, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be just as encouraging without being supernatural. Ultimately, it does connect us with God, as all expressions of love do, because the Bible tells us God is love, and all those who know love, know God.
Believer or infidel, or something in between, I can see that you know God, because you know love.
I don’t believe in God; especially after growing up in my intolerant and religious family. I’ve found my own way, and am happy with that.
My mother was raised in church. She now does not believe in church. This upsets her mother, my grandmother. And yet, Mom is always saying “talk to Granny about it and have her pray with you.” Mom doesn’t believe praying is like making a wish. She thinks praying is like putting positive energy out there into the world, and that it makes all the difference. So that is something to think about.
I just finished reading Wild. Read it straight through couldn’t put it down. Then went on amazon to send it to my best friend, a writer, who loves your blog. That. Was. Amazing. Miigwech
Bettina
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