silence

I just finished the book Silence by Shusaku Endo. Highly recommend. One of the best books I’ve read. Maybe why I liked it so much was because I related so much to the theme and questions the book raises. Basic plot is a Portuguese priest goes to Japan during the time when Christianity is banned in Japan. He gets caught, and is tormented to apostate. A key question he has is why God is so seemingly silent during the persecution and the tortures of the poor Christian peasants (hence the title ‘Silence’). It is excellent, well done, and a definite must read.

God’s silence is something I asked myself quite a bit throughout the book as well as just throughout the last couple of months. Why the sufferings and the seeming silence of God? Why the repeated cancers and pain and infections for my mom? 5 years it has been, and the end of the whole ordeal seems always just slightly out of reach for her. Where was God? Does God love? Does God care? Why the silence? Why the pain and hurt? It’s one thing for me to go through it; it’s another to see someone you love and care deeply for go through it. That’s when everything you believe and think is most deeply challenged.

I know the right Christian answers. She knows the right Christian answers. It’s not that we don’t believe. It’s that sometimes feelings and beliefs don’t necessarily align, and we know it is because of limited perspective that they don’t align, but the feelings are there regardless. But right Christian answers are not always helpful or wanted. We tend to want everything to be nicely categorized into ‘black’ and ‘white’ but more often than not, it’s just not that simple, because people’s emotions are not that simple. Silence challenges the easy answers we give to ourselves. Apostate? Never. Is God silent? Never. I feel we answer too quickly to questions we don’t think deeply enough about. And we don’t think deeply enough about them because we are either scared to think too deeply about them or assume we already know, when actually we know nothing because we’ve always had the privilege of not having to go through those difficult situations.

“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.” (Grief Observed, CS Lewis)

I use to not quite understand this quote. But through talking to my mom I’m just beginning to understand that ‘right’ Christian answers are not always the best answers. In fact, they sometimes hurt more than help. I like logic and reasoning. I like giving the silver lining. I like throwing out the easy, nicely packaged Christian answers. Because it’s the “right” thing to do. Because it’s much easier than to open up, be vulnerable, and hurt with people going through a difficult time.  But I’m learning to just listen, to just understand, and to just hear people. It’s difficult for me to do this when it comes to my mom, because it scares me of how vulnerable I’ll have to be, of how hurt I’ll feel when I empathize with her, not only because of the magnitude of her pain and sufferings, but because of how much she means to me. Hurting with the hurt is something I’m learning. Is this not what God did for us? He didn’t stand far off and give us easy answers, but He came down, He became man, He came near, and He took our pain and suffering upon Himself. And so we know He loved us.

Our God is much more gracious to us than we are to ourselves and to each other. I’ve had a lot of right Christian answers get thrown at me when I simply did not need them. I knew all they had to say, but that’s not what I needed. And to be honest, I just stopped sharing and kept it between God and me because I found God most merciful, gracious, and understanding. Sometimes people need to hear what is right. But sometimes, when it comes to someone who is going through a difficult situation, just shut up. listen. understand. try to place yourself in their shoes. know that you won’t ever grasp the whole extent of their pain and difficulty and so your insight is limited. feel their hurt with them. acknowledge their difficulty. and don’t be so afraid of not giving the right answers.

This is what I’m learning. To shut up and to love as Jesus did – to hurt with those who hurt.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4)