You Don’t Know, You Don’t Want To Know

Why does it take getting pounded by life to tenderize our hearts to the suffering of others? Some don’t get tender, of course. Some, like Javert, feel wronged and pursue “justice” until the end of their days. They keep track of every slight and spend their days plotting revenge. Mercy is weak, kindness naive.

Some who suffer retreat from life and become a non-entity. And some who see these people retreat condemn them. The Anchoress addresses this notion:

John never demanded notice. Likely he never believed he was worth anyone’s noticing. When you are rejected by your parents at a young age, never quite included in “the family,” that can happen.

It has never been my habit to decide the spiritual fate of someone else; in fact I loathe nothing more than folks who presumptuously declare they know the state of someone else’s soul, because of this scripture verse or that. These people, to me, seem unloving, empty and oddly disconnected from the scripture they quote…as though their intellect has cut off from their heart. Other people mean well, but…I know tomorrow my email will contain a few missives from people who will quote scripture at me and enumerate to me all the reasons my brother is not now in the peace of Christ.

I say to hell with that. He was loved into being; he was baptized and sealed. The people who were supposed to teach him the way in which to go spun him madly, incessantly – then allowed him to get dizzy and lost. He lived a sad, tortured life the best way he knew how – quite imperfectly, but then his tools were also very insufficient and his trust was non-existent. I cannot claim to know anything, but I do not believe that a loving God would look upon this much-sinned against man and reject him once again, as he was rejected all his life.

Pain. There is so much pain. And while many people have empty souls, who knows what their lives would be like if love touched them? Only God knows the answer to that.

Posted in Spirit
Tags: Death • Family • God