Good men and women have fallen, and the level of suffering has increased and now Marius Pontmercy sits in the broken cafe knowing he's the only one to survive, his friends have died, other than Jean Valjean, and he now regrets and reminisces the loss of his friends:
“Oh, my friends, my friends, forgive me.
That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.”
One of the realities of human life is that tragic things and suffering happen in our world, and not just to bad people who we might think deserve a good wake-up call. Look at the pained faces of those sitting in the ruins of a bombed out city or in a squalid refugee camp.
One of the great questions in life is this: "Why is there suffering?" -- Where is God in a war? Or in an earthquake Or in a crime of terror? Or a sombre medical diagnosis?
How do you respond to that?
How do we help our kids understand why the suffering doesn’t just go away when they say their prayers?
What do you believe your faith has to say that is helpful or unique at a time like this?
Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of the provocative book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, tells how one day he received a phone call informing him that a five-year-old boy in the neighbourhood had run out into the street after a ball, had been hit by a car, and died. He did not know the boy; the family was not a part of his synagogue. Nonetheless he went to the service.
How do we help our kids understand why the suffering doesn’t just go away when they say their prayers?
What do you believe your faith has to say that is helpful or unique at a time like this?
Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of the provocative book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, tells how one day he received a phone call informing him that a five-year-old boy in the neighbourhood had run out into the street after a ball, had been hit by a car, and died. He did not know the boy; the family was not a part of his synagogue. Nonetheless he went to the service.
In the eulogy, the family's minister said, “This is not a time for sadness or tears. This is a time for rejoicing, because Jack has been taken out of this world of sin and pain .... He is in a happier land now where there is no pain and no grief, let us thank God for that.”
Rabbi Kushner said that he felt so so bad for Jack's parents and family! Not only had they lost a child without warning, they were being told by a representative of their religion that they should rejoice. Of course they did not feel like rejoicing. They felt hurt; they felt angry; they felt that God had been totally unfair to them; they felt, not for any valid reason, guilty even. Their minister assumed God to be the direct and simple cause of this tragedy, and that therefore a simple solution would suffice.
