Winter: Part I
Gandalf, Kittens, Theodicy, and A Real Pain
A writer’s note: This piece had to be split into two. If you finish part one and are concerned - it’s okay, you can read part two!
The walls of my room are dusky blue, the details of my desk and drying clothes fading as the light slips away. I’ve been lying in bed for hours, concussed and unable to do anything besides sit in the dark. Silent, I am suspended in a liminal space, my headache tightening into a burning halo.
A few months ago, I had been sitting under bright doctor’s office lights, shoulders hunched as I waited in the plastic chair in the corner of the room. I tucked my car keys into my purse; a packet of inconclusive blood tests folded in my hands. I fantasized that someone would come sweep me away, save me from the forms, calls to insurance, and blood pressure cuffs. In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf tells Frodo that “A wizard is never late, nor is he early; he arrives precisely when he means to.” However, as I sat in the doctor’s office, I began to suspect that my rescuer, my beleaguered wizard, was not arriving, which meant he was never intending to come save me.
I grew up believing in a god who would save me - an interventionist god. The god that saved Gladys Aylward and all those Chinese orphans from Japanese soldiers in World War 2 by miraculously allowing them to cross a vast body of water. Or the god who provided milk for George Müller and his orphanage when George trusted god to provide against all odds and with no money. Maybe the trick is to get a few orphans, that seems to twist god’s arm a bit.
I was raised on these books, on a god who bends down into human history and alters things to provide for the people earnestly trying to follow him at great personal cost and suffering. They believe he will provide -and he does! Right in the nick of time, the boats show up, and the milk cart spills right in front of the orphanage. A wizard is never late, never early; he arrives precisely when he means to.
These stories were not confined to books. When I was younger, my cat Tabitha, sleeping on the roof of our car, was flung off the top and into adjacent rice fields along the highway, quite a way from our home. We searched and searched but could not find her. It seemed impossible that this small kitten, who had never been outside of our yard, could find her way across busy roadways and fields. At school that day, the chapel speaker had shared about God’s love, and that God would find a way that day to reveal his love for us. I decided that this was that moment, and that God would bring Tabitha the kitten home safely.
My parents worried that the likely reality of a dead or missing cat might squelch my faith as I prayed that night. Lo and behold, the next morning, there was Tabitha on the doorstep loudly meowing for food. We were overjoyed, and my parents were shocked by this seemingly miraculous provision, but I was not - I had prayed after all!
As my family moved overseas, I continued to be surrounded by stories of God’s provision, even experiencing some of these moments myself - God seemed to be guiding my family through airport security, medical crises, and transnational moves.
I guess I thought that this divine intervention might happen for me now. That God might hear me, might alleviate some suffering. Instead, I sit alone in the doctor’s office. No one knows I’m here.
In First Reformed, distressed pastor Ernst Toller sits with his mentor Rev. Jeffers. He pours out his heart about his increasing grief over the destruction of the environment. Jeffers looks at his struggling mentee with concern and evokes the story of Christ weeping blood, “It’s like you’re always in the garden.” He shakes his head, “God doesn’t want us to suffer.”
I never know what to think about this scene. Is Toller correct or is Jeffers? On one hand, Jesus never promises a life without suffering, often telling the disciples that they will face trouble. And yet, I can’t help but agree with the wording of Jeffers’ admonition - that God doesn’t want us to suffer, that he doesn’t desire suffering for us.
I’m confronted by the classic question of Theodicy - how do you reconcile the goodness and providence of God with the suffering in the world? It almost feels trite to ask it - how unoriginal. In the words of David Kaplan in A Real Pain, “Isn’t everyone in pain in some way? I mean, look at what happened to our families, look at where we came from. I mean, who isn’t - you know, who isn’t wrought?”
And I want to say to God - why don’t you come down here and see about us? And even as I say that, fist curled up at the sky. I am reminded of the incarnation, and I have to admit that he did come down to see about us. And I guess Jesus had the same question for God as all of us. “Please don’t make me suffer this horrific thing, let this cup pass” and then “Why have you forsaken me?”
And that awful moment in the garden. His friends asleep, or in another time zone, or dealing with their own particular suffering. All alone, the noonday sun blotted out. I wonder sometimes if the garden was worse than the cross. At least there were people weeping with him at the cross.
I guess I just thought that following Jesus would be like The Lord of the Rings1- sure things are bad, like really bad, but then the eagles swoop in and take you away, or Gandalf shows up just at the right time.
None of this seems to happen for me. I begin to wonder if the interventionist God of my childhood is gone. The God who was concerned with the return of a young child’s cat seems distant now that I’ve grown up and find myself alone at the hospital.
While I wait for answers, I spend a lot of time thinking about Silence by Endo Shusaka. Silence is a novel all freshmen are required to read at Wheaton, and it documents the early Japanese Christians who were tortured and endured great suffering for their faith. It follows a Portuguese priest named Rodrigues, who comes to Japan expecting glorious and honorable martyrdom, great signs and wonders from God. Instead, he is faced with Silence. He feels as if he and the other Christians have been abandoned by God, left to suffer and die with no deliverance.
I wrote a paper on this book in college- oh so wisely pointing out that the Jesuit priest was looking in the wrong place for the presence and intervention of God, that God was in the care he received from the Japanese laity, in the cucumber a woman offered him, in the sounds of crickets. Over time, Rodrigues comes to see Christ not as a conquering king but within community, and as one who suffers and is trampled on for others.
I can’t help but find myself more sympathetic towards Rodrigues’ crisis of faith now. A Christ who suffers alongside us is meaningful to be sure. Come down and see about us! But I can’t help but want a God who can do something about all of this.
I have been trying to look for my cucumbers and crickets, and there have been moments of provision. I eat an Oreo with my pills each night. I watch the foxes by the river. I think about the jellyfish rings of a UFO unfurling in the night sky. But I’m beginning to doubt that these brief moments are enough for me. There’s barely manna for each day and certainly no quail.
What if these small moments of light aren’t enough? What if God just isn’t enough for me?
I rewatch A Real Pain for the fourth time. It’s a movie following David and Benji, two Jewish cousins exploring Poland, the place where their grandmother survived the Holocaust. The two cousins are foils of each other, David being uptight and responsible, whilst Benji is charming but erratic. The climactic scene takes place when the members of the Jewish heritage tour sit down for dinner.
You can watch the scene here: A Real Pain (2024) | Dinner Table Scene | David’s Monologue
A lot of the past year, I have felt like David, continuing on with my ordinary pain.
“I’m not [okay], though. I’m not. … I go to work in the morning and I, like, come home at the end of the day, and I, like, move forward, you know, because I know that my pain is unexceptional, so I don’t feel the need to, like, I don’t know, burden everybody with it, you know?
And then I end up in that doctor’s office, and I realize I’m also Benji, feeling everything so deeply it overwhelms me.
“How did this guy come from the survivors of this place, you know?... our grandma survived by a thousand miracles when the entire world was trying to kill her, you know? And I look at him and I just, like, wanna ask him... I just wanna ask him, and I just can’t. Like... like, how did the product of a thousand fucking miracles overdose on a bottle of sleeping pills?2
I think about the stories I grew up with, the provisions I’ve received. I come from two families of faithful Christians, people who believed in miracles, in an interventionist God who swoops in at the right time. How did the product of a thousand miracles end up here?
I’m back in my bedroom, concussed, listening (because I can’t look at the screen) to the movie O’ Brother where Art Thou.
Dan Tyminski sings, “I am a man of constant sorrow… no pleasures here on earth I found, for in this world I’m bound to ramble. I have no friends to help me now.”3
Turns out, maybe it still is - the hobbits still have to walk their way into Mordor.