God is Good All the Time - or NOT

   (--or this could be subtitled, "Destructive Pious Platitudes".) 

  We met them at the huge flea market where they had the booth next to ours and were selling a zany assortment of trash and treasure from Model A tires to gooseneck lamps.

  We had been eager to press on with our downsizing and pursue the gypsy life, so in an effort to lighten our load of inventory left over from the Christmas store at our former Christmas tree farm, we had set up shop at the annual Thumb Octagon Barn Fall Festival where we thought our mix of antiques and photo art would be likely to sell to the thousands of visitors. 

  Rick and Mary were in the next booth, and they were as friendly a couple as you might find anywhere, very soft-spoken and unassuming, and we were three days into our four-day weekend of camaraderie, trading watermelons and fried cakes across the tables, before the subject of spiritual journey came up.

  It came about in the most off-handed way, but it seemed as if Rick had been waiting to share all along, and he started into a tragic story, telling of a disastrous head-on crash years ago that had taken the lives of his first wife and 18-month-old daughter.  It seems that some drunken teenagers had been on a wild spree that started as a joy ride that turned into a high speed chase propelled by the police sirens and flashing lights in their rearview mirror, and a few miles down the road, destiny met destiny in a pile of twisted metal and glass where blood and antifreeze ran together to the curb.

  Somehow Rick and his son survived the crash, and shortly the local parish priest arrived at his bedside in the hospital to minister to the broken man in his hour of grief, and that's where Rick's spiritual journey took a drastic turn.

  "This is part of God's plan for you," said the priest in comforting tones, but Rick didn't see any comfort in it, and his heart was repulsed by God's apparent cruelty to him and his family.  After a while he recovered physically, but he never regained the same spiritual fortitude and quietly slipped away from the Catholic Church never to return.

  His theological platform is a simple one now, and it's a long way from the Catholic catechism. "Believe what you want to and believe it well, and you'll be fine," is what he asserts now, and it seems to be working for him, though his second wife, Mary, says she hasn't abandoned her faith but seldom attends church.

Mary & Rick, former Catholics

  Before we parted company, I told Rick that his story was an unusually tragic one, but that in one way it wasn't uncommon in that many folks have been put off by pious platitudes coming out of the mouths of well-meaning friends and family during times of grief.  People don't know what to say, so they revert to the familiar pat answers.

  Kaye and I have both been through cancer a couple of times, and have been surprised at the insensitive things that people say in their eagerness to help.  I told Rick that the Bible says we should "mourn with those who mourn." (Rom. 12:15)  The Bible does not say we should try to cheer each other up when we are going through tragedy.

  Here are some pious platitudes I've heard that have not been all that helpful to me:

• "God is in control."  This really has an entire theological school of thought behind it, but I would simply counter that when God gave man free will, he gave up control.  And so there can be Hitlers and Gaddafi's and drunken teenagers in the world who take the lives of innocent people.  So it may not have been God's will that Rick's wife and child were wiped out in a grinding crash on a lonely blacktop; it was a result of the choices (the free will) of some carousing teenagers high on weed and alcohol.  In the Lord's prayer, when it says, "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"(Matt.6:10), it alludes to a future time and dispensation when God's will may be done on earth.  Until then, the will of God is very often not done in the world, and many people suffer because of it.
• "God is good all the time, all the time God is good."  This is an American Christianism that comes out of an affluent society without regard for the rest of the hurting world.  Tell the two million Christians who were systematically murdered by the tyrannical government of the Sudan that "God is good all the time" and see the puzzled looks in their eyes.  Tell the descendants of the six million Jews wiped out by Hitler that "God is good all the time", and see if they agree with you.  Tell your friend or family member who has just been told they have terminal cancer that "God is good all the time", and see if you get an affirming nod in return.
• "I don't know how I would get through this without the Lord."  It's been my experience with folks who do not know the Lord, that for the most part they get through things just as well as the faithful.  They just call it luck or fate, not the Lord, and they adjust.  On the other hand, not everybody who has the Lord recovers very nicely either.
• You fill this one in with a Comment below.

  If I'm making a point here it is not whether these statements are true or false; I'm saying that they may not be the best things to bring up when someone is grieving.  People may simply need someone to cry with them.  That's all.  You know, in Bible times when someone lost a loved one, mourners would show up at the house and weep and cry and wail and help the person grieve.  Their job was not to encourage, at least not at first.  Maybe we should revive that old tradition; it might be more appropriate than telling people, "I know how you feel, and believe me, you'll get over it with time."

  Okay then.  Kaye and I have been enjoying the folks we've been meeting on the city streets and country roads this summer, and Rick and Mary were a delight to associate with while at the Octagon Barn Festival.  Oh, and we all made a few dollars too!  We went with two pickup loads and came back with one.  Praise the Lord!  -- or praise the people who needed all that junk we were selling!