Lamenting the Meaningless

Occasions of suffering like we are seeing in Burma and China are always jarring reminders of the fragility of life as well as the extreme vulnerability to disaster that many (especially the poor) live with. The unimaginable scale of loss and devastation (with losses in the hundreds of thousands) that is being discovered should be cause for lament and for prayer and for actions to alleviate whatever suffering we can.

We also tend to look for meaning in the midst of meaninglessness and I was glad to see the republication in First Things of David Bentley Hart’s thoughts, originally published after Boxing Day 2006 and later expanded in a short book called The Doors of the Sea. There are no words that can make events like these comprehensible but I appreciate Hart’s emphasis on not needing to explain them in light of some overarching divine plan or purpose. In particular I was moved by his final lines,

“When I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of His enemy… God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; He will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, He will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes — and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and He that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new.”