By DEACON CYNTHIA BIDDLECOMB
ELCA
(a.k.a. Cinema Cindy)
In his 1940 book “The Problem of Pain”, Clive Staples “C.S.” Lewis wrote:
If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us. Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St Augustine says somewhere, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.’ Or, as a friend of mine said, ‘We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.’ Now God, who made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as he leaves us any other resort where it can plausibly be looked for. While what we call ‘our own life’ remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make ‘our own life’ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness?
The Problem of Pain. Pg. 94 (Harper San Francisco edition)
When we chose the heading for our column, “All Shall Be Well” (the famous 14th century quote from Julian of Norwich), we fully intended the future tense. Things aren’t always well with any of us, are they? There is, however, the promise that “All shall be well,” if we would patiently wait for a better day to come. A wise person once told me that things will look different after three days and it’s usually been true, due to new circumstances or a new perspective.
In the preceding extract, C. S. Lewis notes that God’s goodness is always there for us; we need only look to ourselves to see what distracts us from it. Is all that we have enough? Are our hands too full of the things of this life that we can no longer open them to receive from God?
We like to say that ‘our own life’, as Lewis puts it, is ours to do with as we please. We blithely ignore obligations we might have to other people, our neighbors, the creatures and environment around us. We are too busy, we hear ourselves saying, when asked to help out.
Our hands are too full, our priorities already set. We have no time to give, even to experience the divine, be that through helping others or taking a quiet moment out of a busy day. Until tragedy strikes. Until the wildfire crosses the line and threatens our neighborhood. Until a health scare upends our days. Until we discover our need for God in the midst of a crisis.
Take a moment now, as you read this, to acknowledge God’s creative, redemptive and sustaining power in your life. Give thanks for the goodness you can see around you. Open your hands and receive.
