Night
One of my favorite times of the day are meal times at either one of the two communal cafeterias that are part of the Graduate Theological Union. Not only is it an opportunity to avail oneself to food, it is an opportunity for conversation and fellowship. Not surprisingly as everyone on this “Holy Hill” is a seminarian of one faith or another, the topic of conversation is often religious belief. And many times, people speak of their personal relationship to a God that moves through their lives as a constant living presence.
I read Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” this morning, one of my required readings for the week. It is, according to the book jacket, a “terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness of the death of his family.”
Despite the heavy subject, it is a quick read. And for those familiar with “Schindler’s List,” there wasn’t much in it that we don’t already know - imprisonment, starvation, forced work, selection, gas chambers, the death of five million people.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that humans have the ability to act as both divine and evil creatures. But I find that to be a frightful concept of balance.
In a May fellowship service, I had crafted what I might now call my theology of suffering with the words: “We cannot know the reasons why there is a certain pain in the world. We can only know that that pain has the ability to strengthen our love. This does not dismiss our anger and the tactile misery of our feelings. But if we can find love in our pain, we are indeed evolving.”
Today, I’m not sure it is so simple.
1 Comments:
Ms. Stuart,
You wrote:
>>I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that humans have the ability to act as both divine and evil creatures. But I find that to be a frightful concept of balance.<<
"Balance" is indeed a "frightful concept" in this context. I doubt you intended to imply by "balance" that evil and good ("divine") form a balance in terms of equivalency or of any relation that grants evil a positive merit. This is akin to saying that "balance" in newsmedia terms means that there is a legitimate and balanced "debate" between two sides -- for example, between those who state that the Holocaust happened and those who deny that it happened, the deniers' position offered as a seemingly legitimate alternative in a "balance" to create a newsmedia "debate" in the newsmedia, covering all angles of the controversy to please the broadest advertising/audience demographic but in the process inadvertently creating an equivalency. Holocaust denial is a lie that does not become legitimate "truth" by being "balanced" against the factual truth of the Holocaust but it gains legitimacy "by accident" as it were.
Anyway, it's a small point but the equivalency implied by the term "balance" has always disturbed me a bit. However, I know that was not your intent and I have enjoyed reading your insightful posts about your spiritual journey to Turkey and other sacred sites and your theological seminary experiences. I plan to attend your congregation sometime soon, having recently moved to Callicoon.
Dissenta
www.dissenta.blogspot.com
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