Hearing the Inner Voice - Eleanor Shepherd

This month’s issue of Christianity Today includes an interview with classics scholar, Sarah Ruden. She grew up in mainstream liberal Christianity and came into a personal relationship with Christ through her involvement with Quaker believers after spending many years away from Christianity. What spoke to her was the atmosphere of the Quaker community with the caring for one another. Everyone who was part of the community had a task to do and these were shared and rotated, so that all took their turns with the less desirable as well as the more pleasant tasks. What Sarah noted was that they appreciated the contribution of each other. That kind of openness and encouragement created an environment where she was able to sense the presence of God. She talks about hearing a voice inside her saying that everything would be okay.

While I was on vacation, I had the opportunity to do some pleasure reading and I was spellbound by Angelina Fast-Vlaar’s account of her grief experience in Seven Angels for Seven Days. Again, she speaks several times of being in situations where she received that same kind of inner assurance, and inevitably, the setting for her reception of this message was the kindness of others, whom she felt were God’s angels sent her way when she so desperately needed them.

I recalled my own experience of dealing with our son’s accident when he became a quadriplegic. In all of the pain and turmoil of our grief, there were times when we were able to hear that inner voice assuring us that everything was under control, in spite of the circumstances in which we found ourselves. Those who created the safe place where we could hear that message were our friends from around the world who prayed. Equally importantly were our longtime loyal friends who were there to do mundane things like take me away from the hospital to see the hairdresser and provide a winter coat for my husband Glen when he arrived from France in the middle of a freezing Canadian winter, with just a spring overcoat. Sometimes it was just coming to be with us as we kept vigil outside the surgical intensive care unit.

On Friday mornings in my regular prayer time, I pray specifically for several different countries that I know something about personally. One of these countries is Haiti. On Friday, January 8^, 2010, when I was praying for Haiti, I was given a particular verse for this country, as I use the Scriptures in my prayer time. It was Acts 4:30 in the Contemporary English version of the Bible. “Show your mighty power, as we heal people and work miracles and wonders in the name of your holy Servant Jesus.” I had no idea what that verse was going to mean for the country of Haiti in the months that would follow the event occurring four days later. Both those who have gone and continue to go to Haiti and those who provide help from afar are involved in working miracles and wonders in the name of Jesus. As a result the people of Haiti can tell of occasions when they have heard that inner voice assuring them that they are not alone and that the Eternal God is not only aware of their situation. He is with them in it.

If as the people of God we want to see others discover the riches of the faith we hold, I believe that we will best do so by our thoughtfulness. As we respectfully create listening spaces for others, they will be able to discern that inner voice that quietly assures us that He is in control and we can bring everything to Him. He longs to welcome us each one of us and make us whole.

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Allow for Space in the Music - Arends

My most recent Christianity Today column is about the way we respond to the suffering of others and ourselves.  It's one of those topics I wish I could have had about 3000 words to write about, but here's what I managed in 800.  I'd love it if you let me know how it hits you.

Allow for Space in the Music

Acknowledging the mystery of pain.

From the April issue from Christianity Today

Eighteen months ago, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer, and my father's rare neurological disease took a hairpin turn for the worse. Their busy lives dissolved into months of treatments, complications, and worst-case scenarios.

Caring for them has been my first real experience with prolonged suffering. I had no clue about the malaise that can spawn from the union of chronic pain and diminished hope. My parents have been heroic. But they have also groped for the meaning of their pain and its remedy, and have found neither.

Through it all I have tried to offer comfort, and I've watched others do the same. Sometimes our words have been balms. Sometimes they have been hand grenades.

I recently asked friends online what words and actions had been the least helpful in trying times, and I got a passionate and prolific response. I recognized many of the platitudes listed as things that had come out of my mouth.

Many responses fell into a category I call "Invalidation of the Present Pain." With a bombastic mix of well-meaning fervor and unconscious impatience, we attempt to rush our wounded friend to closure. Classics include "It will all work out in the end," "Time heals all wounds," and glib recitations of Romans 8:28.

Many of those responses are wonderfully true. But so is Jesus' observation that it's those who mourn who are comforted (Matt. 5:4). He knew better than anyone the Happy Ending that awaits us, yet he was deeply respectful of the pain of our present condition. John 11:35 tells us that when Jesus' friend died, he wept; the Greek word refers to a passionate outpouring of grief. So perhaps it is more Christlike to feel pain rather than to try to expedite it.

Other replies revealed what I call "Formula Thinking," an assumption that a uniform explanation can be applied to all suffering. We believe affliction is either discipline from God or an attack from Satan, and that the right degree of repentance—or faith—will turn things around.

The idea that God blesses the good and punishes the bad, and that circumstances line up accordingly, is antithetical to the stories of New Testament believers. (It was also the error of Job's well-meaning friends.) It provides the illusion that we can control outcomes. When people are in pain, we reflexively look for something to blame, so we can avoid that variable and keep out of harm's way. Tragically, our judgments are often salt in our friends' wounds.

Still other responses fell into what I call the "Forced Meaning" reactions. "God has a reason for everything," we claim, and then we try to ram horrible tragedies into redemptive molds—suggesting that cancer, rape, and earthquakes are wake-up calls, strange expressions of grace in God's epic story. But does the Haitian mother holding her child's mangled body really have a chance of finding comfort in this platitude? Is it true?

Scripture reveals a sovereign God actively working in human events, but it also speaks clearly of free will and its consequences. I cannot begin to fathom the tension between the two. But I do believe that most of our suffering is the result of brokenness, and that God is more interested in reconciling all things to himself than in blowing them apart. Yes, God brings good out of tragedy (it's one of his specialties), but that doesn't mean he necessarily engineered the horrors.

After the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami, theologian David Bentley Hart responded eloquently to the Forced Meaning bias, saying that Christians shouldn't "console ourselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God's goodness in this world, or … assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation; our faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred."

So what can we say in times of trouble? I asked my friends what responses had helped them the most, and their replies reminded me of a piece of advice attributed to Miles Davis: "Think of a note and don't play it." As a musician, I understand—allow for space in the music, don't always rush in, and listen. As a friend and a daughter, I'm starting to get it, too. Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is think of a truth and embody it rather than say it. When we long to tell a hurting friend that she's not alone, we can simply sit with her as a tangible reminder that she isn't. When we want to reassure a struggling family that God cares for them, a well-timed casserole can demonstrate that very fact. Only when we acknowledge the present pain—and the mysteries that likely shroud its cause—do we earn the right to affirm God's goodness in the midst of it.

And only when we mourn—for ourselves, for each other, and for a world groaning for redemption—can we be comforted … and be a comfort.

Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Haiti and Hope - Shepherd

Every Friday in my regular early morning prayer time, I pray for several countries specifically. One of them is Haiti. On the morning of January 8^th, I felt particularly burdened as I prayed for that country. Usually, I use the Scriptures as a guide when I pray. That Friday morning, as I prayed for Haiti the verse that I read was from Acts 4. The Contemporary English Version says in verse 30, “Show your mighty power, as we heal people and work miracles and wonders in the name of your holy Servant Jesus.” I found it a beautiful image but had no idea how significant it would be just a few days later, after the earthquake hit on Tuesday, January 12^th.

Does that mean that I think God orchestrated the earthquake that caused so much pain, suffering and grief for the people of Haiti, so that these gracious deeds could be done? No. I do not understand what the cause and effect relationship is between disasters and the will of God. What I do know is that whenever and wherever on this earth disasters occur, God is there listening to the cries of the suffering and bringing hope and healing through all kinds of people. My heart broke every time I turned on the news and saw the desolation in Haiti.

I saw a photo of the caved in roof of the house where we stayed when we were there in 2006. I have also seen God’s mighty power at work in incredible ways. Just this morning, I read in the Montreal Gazette about a man who tunneled his way out of where he was buried under debris, twelve days after the earthquake. He managed to find food until the last three days. He avows that God kept him alive.

The cynic may well ask if God did it for him, why He did not do it for others. Of course, I cannot answer that. Only God knows. However, that does not mean that the man is wrong in giving praise and thanks to God for sparing his life.

Such tragedies put us in touch once again with the essential realities of life. It is not what we have that matters, but where our hope lies.

This weekend my husband, Glen, was on an Air Canada flight that took medicines and supplies as well as volunteer medical personnel to Haiti to try to help in the mammoth relief effort that is taking place. The project was organized by Air Canada and employees who participated did so voluntarily, without being paid. The plane returned early Sunday morning, bringing the first of the Haitian orphans to Canada. Sitting next to Glen, on the way to Haiti was Father Raymond De Souza. One of his tasks was to pray for the mission.

As the flight prepared to leave Canada, the priest reflected and based his prayer on the words from Matthew 25 – how meeting the needs of those in desperate straits is ministering to Jesus. For the return flight, when the twenty-four orphans and Haitian evacuees were on board, his focus was James 1:27, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

I mentioned in an earlier blog, how I always pray as I enter an airplane because of my fear of flying. However, I have never heard prayer offered over the public address system on a flight. But then, I have never flown as mission like that one. To me it is an example of the mighty power of God being shown in healing and working miracles and wonders in the name of our holy Servant Jesus. I believe that out of all the pain, suffering and devastation a new Haiti will emerge that will remind us where hope is found.

When I read the story of Father De Souza’a prayer on line this morning, I discovered that there were those who commented negatively about it. How sad I felt as I read their remarks. Then my husband reminded me that they have possibly not yet come into the light. They are not aware of what God is doing.

I saw a related CTV news item last night. As a reporter was passing a church service being held outside the collapsed church building in Port-au-Princes, he was called to the microphone by the pastor. The CTV reporter was able to tell the congregation that there were people throughout the world who were contributing aid to help in the terrible tragedy that has befallen their country. They had no idea people outside Haiti knew or cared. Yet, God is at work on their behalf and knowing that they sing with joy.