God Is

(image via pixabay)

A friend is suffering a lot right now, and there’s not much anyone can do. Pray for them, if you would. Thank you.

I’m not doing so well myself. Pray for me and I’ll pray for you.

Those of you who have been with me for any length of time know that I’m not the most knowledgeable gal on Patheos Catholic. I’m not an apologist. I don’t have a lot of answers. Snark, yes, and I like to talk about art and film, and I hate politics and I think it’s possible to get along with different kinds of people. I have very few answers.

I don’t know why people suffer so much. Just witnessing what my friend went through and is re-living now is so humbling, and terrifying. I don’t know why she’s suffering what she’s suffering. I don’t know why anybody does. I don’t have the words to reconcile that kind of pain with the God I know and love. I live in a fallen world, and that means I am forever in that paradox– that God is all-loving and cannot do wrong, and yet we suffer, and we suffer too much. And I’ve never heard an explanation that satisfied me. Not from Saint Thomas or Aristotle or reliably stuffy philosophers I’ve studied; not from more interesting philosophers either. When I was on the Planet Charismatic, I was told that I personally was suffering so much because God had chosen me to offer up my agony for the unborn babies. But I know now that that’s a demonic lie. If I who am evil know that it’s a sin to torture one child for the salvation of the others, then God knows it too. So I’m back to where I started, with no answer that will satisfy.

And if you try to explain it to me in the comments (which you’re welcome to do if you’d like), I don’t think that answer will satisfy either.

I don’t think there’s a word that a human tongue can say, that can answer my lament.

Only God can say it, and He will have to say it in eternity, because it can’t be said here. It’s too big.

Some of you will tell me I’m a fool to believe in God, seeing that the world that exists is so painful, and I respect you. You can think that if you want. But I’ve seen too much of God to be able to believe He doesn’t exist. Sometimes I almost wish I could stop believing, because it would be easier, but He’s real. God is. I have tasted and seen. I’ve been convicted. God is. I have been stuck in the Ohio Valley for ten years this coming September. In ten years, I’ve seen pain like you wouldn’t believe, but I’ve seen miracles as well. I’ve seen mercy. I’ve seen Heaven and Hell in little glimpses everywhere, and every time the hell got deeper I saw that Heaven was deeper still.

I can’t explain all the things that I’ve seen, not in a nice fancy formula like Aquinas or Aristotle or any of the fun Philosophers I liked reading more than those two. I’ve always been a rotten philosopher. But I write, because I want to show you that everything is grace. Everything sings of the glory of God. The universe and everything in it is saturated with God.  A tree in a cemetery is grace. A child with a mouthful of crowns is grace. A lame ewe is grace. Lightning is grace. Sugar snap peas are grace. Food stamps are grace. God is.

In the Blessed Sacrament, God is.

Where Charity and Love are, God is.

In the shadow of clouds before a storm, God is.

Where the lightning strikes, God is.

When the drought comes, God is.

When the rains return, God is.

In the whisper, God is.

In the midst of noise, God is.

When you burn, God is.

When you die, God is.

When you descend into deepest darkness and all have abandoned you, God is.

God is above the firmament and deeper than the depths. That’s one reason why He’s so hard to see. It’s not the full answer that will satisfy my longing, but it’s something I know. If He were small enough for me to grasp, He would not be God.

And yet, I swallow Him at Divine Liturgy. I’m going to do it again about fourteen hours from now. When I swallow Him, He also consumes me, but still, Father drops a spoonful of God on my tongue, and all eternity is in that spoon. So, you see, I don’t even know what I thought I knew a paragraph ago.

But I know that God is.

And God will make all things well, and I will see that everything has been grace all along.

And that will be enough. It doesn’t seem like it’s enough; it seems like something less than five loaves of bread for five thousand men, but it will turn out to have been more than enough.

I don’t know how this can be, but I know that God is.