I ask this question as much of myself as of others: "Do religious people often draw the wrong lessons from tragedy?" Finding a plan or a design, and ultimately blaming God, when bad things occur?
Depending on one's own faith tradition or religious beliefs, how one refers to God may differ. God. Goddess. Higher Power. Deity. Jesus? Intercession of an angel or a saint or a Jin? Gods or goddesses in the plural? But there is still the universal question: Does this Deity or deities intervene in our lives and if so, in what way?
Those who celebrate the Advent season as a build up to Christmas believe that God intervened in a remarkable way by becoming a human being, born in Bethlehem. Nearly 2,000 years ago. But even among believers of Jesus there is a lot of disagreement about the significance of the Christmas event. How it happened, when it happened, why it happened? And, what was the purpose of the life and teaching of Jesus? Even the question of who and what Jesus is something even some Christians disagree about. God incarnate, son of God, great prophet, teacher, rabbi, miracle worker, a combination of these?
But today's topic is miracles, and their inverse, tragedy--sorrow, grief, hurt, devastation, events that crush body, mind and soul--amid a seemingly indifferent, uncaring Higher Power. What are miracles anyway, do they occur, and if so, how do they occur?
For the past couple of weeks I have been recovering from a corona-virus like illness. And, I have watched interviews on Youtube of Rabbi Harold Kushner. He has an interesting perspective--one which is enlightening and practical. Perhaps some of you have read the 1981 book he wrote regarding when bad things happen to good people. Rabbi Kushner is not one who believes in big, physical miracles. He does not believe in a God that acts in a bold way upon the natural world. The natural world of space, time, atoms, molecules, DNA, diseases, epidemics, natural disasters, and human choices is not the space that God operates in, according to Kushner. He makes it clear What he and his wife went through in losing their 14 year old son to a fatal disease had challenged Rabbi Kushner's faith. How can a God who intervenes in the world stand by and allow a 14 year old, to suffer a terrible disease, and then tragically die.
A lot of Christians believe in a God who picks and chooses miracles to perform--sometimes saving lives, maybe through the intervention of a saint or angel in Heaven--and sometimes not. If only we pray hard enough! If only we attend healing Masses with faith, with fervor, speak in tongues, invoke the Holy Spirit loud enough. (And I am not disparaging charismatic worship style.)
But how is it that this loving God, permits horrible things to happen on the one hand and intervenes and heals on the other.
But in a traditional Catholic and also, Protestant view, this is how God operates. And it is a mystery. Augustine wrote that God never wills evil but allowed for the permissive will of God, a God who does not and cannot do evil but permits terrible things to unfold in order to later extract some good, or ultimate justice, out of it. This leaves Christians in an uncomfortable spot, basically: praying to God for miracles and even boldly declaring it when they seemingly occur but the flip side, left in a very awkward and painful space when the miraculous intervention fails to arrive.
How many people have expressed to me this year the pain this year's holiday season brings as they recall the loss of loved ones--indeed lots of folks are not here this year who were present a year ago. We are still dealing with the fallout from coronavirus plus the usual scourges that befall us, not to mention increasing deaths due to fentanyl overdosing and gun violence. Last week's Washington Post said that the fentanyl crisis is the number one epidemic in America. It is the number one killer of people in their late teens, 20s and 30s. More than Covid. More than gun violence. More than Cancer. How many funerals...some of us have gone to far too many of them.
Physical miracles...I am not saying they do or do not happen. But why would they? Why would two parents in an emergency watch their child die, for example, as a hospital away God permits another child to pull though?
Rabbi Kushner's perspective has been consistent over the past 40 or so years, in saying that the real miracle is not a physical change or some dramatic intervention by God in the physical world. God does not intervene in the physical world; God does not control laws of nature, genetics, falling trees, natural occurrences nor human acts. Rather, one's God or Goddess or Deity or the Higher Power operates in spiritual realm--the metaphysical realm--perhaps a Hindu or a Buddhist would refer to this as the realm of the mind and the heart. The Christian would say it is occurring on a metaphysical level, a spiritual level, or on a psychological and/or emotional plain.
The realm of the soul or the subconscious...but even then, not in a controlling way...
Kushner says there are no strings. God does not pull strings. As Kushner put it, and I may paraphrase only slightly, "God's job is not to make sick people healthy. God's job is to make sick people brave."
God imparts hope, strength, courage--the courage to persevere even when hope seems elusive. In the halls downstairs at St. Monica's and St. Peter's churches in South Boston where the AA meetings take place, there are signs up that say don't leave before the miracle happens. Isn't that the exact kind of miracle that Kushner is talking about? An intangible strength that goes beyond what the individual herself or himself can muster--a power outside oneself, greater than oneself, like step 2 in AA, NA and MA circles--a strength beyond oneself, one's own ego.
This is subtle, and less dramatic, than the kind of miracles some might want to believe in. But this is what Rabbi Kushner speaks about. God imparts courage...the courage to deal with illness, bad news, tragedy, addiction...the strength to persevere and survive loss...and to lend comfort and support to others. Not a string puller, but inspiring us to be the change we want to see in the world.
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