Vince writes by way of introduction: I have been reading a book of Spiritual Reflections by Fr. Richard Rohr, "Job and the Mystery of Suffering", and would like to share with the board members some of the findings he gleans from Job's ever-deepening encounter with God. The Job story was probably written between 500 and 400 B.C.E., that is after the exile of 587. It is interesting that Israel does not deal with the question of failure and suffering until after the experience of the exile. Most of us don't deal with it until we're in the second half of life.

God's role in evil

God did not create evil, but God created a definition of good that seems to include evil. I think that's just being honest and realistic. It's not being theological it merely states what is obviously the case. God is surely tolerating evil; and it appears that, beyond tolerating, God is even making use of it: Maybe that is the great work of transformation, "bringing life out of death, and calling into being what does not exist" (Rom. 4:17)

Fr Richard Rohr. For biogrphical information and the source of the original photo click the image.

We have the mistaken idea that God is totally in charge. But in John's letter and Gospel Jesus says very clearly that Satan is prince of this world (1 John 5:19, John 12:31).

God is very seldom in charge, it seems to me. Only in the lives of saints. Only in people who know themselves and love the Lord and one another is God possibly in charge. In the rest of us, God is in charge maybe a few moments a day.

Remember that the opposite of love is not really hatred, but control. God remains in love and therefore out of the control mode. When we are not in love, we are invariably trying to control everything. It's a good litmus test. God seems to be fully in control only when we give it back to God. That is the beauty and limitation of those who love. They can give up control, and they can weep instead of explain.

A Story of Conversion

Although the Job story has usually been regarded as a study of the mystery of evil, and it is, I'd prefer to look at it as the anatomy of a conversion. For later generations it might be described as a postgraduate course in moral education. For every age it is the diagram for those who "fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:31).

If we view it as a journey into an ever-deepening encounter with God, this will keep it from becoming an abstract debate observed from a distance. We can't observe the question of suffering from a distance. Unless we've felt it, unless we've been up against the wall, at a place where, frankly, God doesn't make sense anymore, the Book of Job is probably going to be only an academic study.

A big obstacle to authentic Christianity is that so much of it has been only second-hand knowledge. All too often, the word of God comes to us as follows: "This is what the church says about God … This is what priests say about God … This is what the Bible says about God." All that is insufficient evidence

Why do the joints stiffen, people ask. Why do sensible plans go nonsensically off course? Why do the innocent suffer? Why are there genetic defects in newborn children? Why have so many died before they had a chance to live? If God is good, why is there so much that seems ungood?

Religious education has for years given people answers to questions they're not asking. The people accept the answers quickly and easily. And the answers go about an inch deep. And the people, all too often, spout the answers for the rest of their lives. "God is the Supreme Being who made all things," or whatever else it might be.

But such knowledge can pass away as quickly as it came, because we never thirsted for it. Until we make space inside, what comes is not an answer but an excuse an excuse not to face the question, an excuse to stop searching, to avoid the journey.

An Eye Opener on Prayer

A striking fact about the Book of Job is that God does, not seem eager to appear as the hero. On the contrary, Yahweh is quite content to let Job emerge finally heroic. This divine modesty is true not only of this book but of all our history. When you have real authority, you do not have to prove it. When you are truly in charge, you don't have to go throwing your weight around.

Sometimes people who don't know God well presume that God would use power the way they would use power: as a dominative force. They want a magician God who appears out-of-the-wings to solve the problem. The paradox of the Book of job is that Yahweh remains totally present in power, yet to all appearances does nothing. And for thirty-seven chapters God says nothing. It's our worst nightmare: a silent, hidden, and ineffective God.

With friends like Job's, who needs trouble?

Job's three friends, practical, righteous, and religious, appear as God's self-appointed messengers with what they are sure is God's answer. They offer the glib, pious platitudes of stereotypical clergymen. They're all theologically correct, yet entirely inadequate. What they do in effect is try to take away the mystery. They try to solve the problem, whereas Yahweh says you cannot solve the problem; you can only live the mystery. The only response to God's faithfulness is to be faithful ourselves.

Theology does not provide the answer to this dilemma, only spirituality does. Its disappointing that we Christians have emphasized theology so much more than spirituality.

We have emphasized catechism and religious education much more than prayer. But for the predicament we have here, there is no answer, only a prayer response, only the willingness to remain in there, to keep talking.

This is probably one of the greatest books on prayer that has ever been written. It breaks our stereotypes of prayer. Certainly, most of the things Job says to God are not what we Christians have been trained to say to God. The pretty words are mostly gone. There's no "beseech and vouchsafe" and "deign" and "thou" — the stuff Christians love to put in their formal prayers. Instead he dares to confront God, the very thing we were trained never to do. In fact, we called it blasphemy.

Job tries yelling at God

The photo selected to illustrate today's reflection is taken from a website entitled "Desert Veils — Tribal Fusion Belly Dance". It's e a self-portrait of dancer Jamilla entitled "Shadow Dancing". Click the image, or HERE, to visit the website.

He yells at God, accuses God of all kinds of things, speaks sarcastically, almost makes fun of God. "If this is a game you're playing, then you're not much of a God! 1 don't need, you and I don't want you" — it's that kind of prayer that creates saints. You can't pray that way, with that authority. unless you know something, unless you are assured at a deep level of a profound relatedness between the two of you, unless you know you can venture into that arena where we say, angels fear to tread.

The desired relationship may be easier to understand for those who have lived a long marriage. The partners are aware what they have said to one another in the past. They have proven by their lives that they love one another. Against such a background one can tell the other off. Let 'em have it. There are the past forty years to fall back on, earlier intimacies to rely upon. Our history together is our truth, undeniable., the events of a lifetime are there, they can't be withdrawn. That's what Job is relying on and never really doubts.

Worthwhile joy has pain stain

True Joy is not authentic unless achieved through pain not under it, not to the right or left or over, but through it. That's the only authentic Christian joy. Any other joy is a covering up of pain, an escaping and denying. There is much denial in religion. The old ostrich manoeuvre: pretend it's not happening. That's not what the Lord is calling us to; it's not the whole paschal mystery. It's not the mystery to which job is submitting here. "If we take happiness from God's hand, must we not take sorrow, too? And in all his misfortune, Job uttered no sinful word."

Stages of grief

This whole book foreshadows the well known stages of grief and dying: denial, anger, bargaining, resignation, and acceptance

God not only loves us but actually likes us

Many consider this a favourite part of the Book of Job. What emerges in several places is that Job knows God likes him. Not loves him, but likes him. It's much harder for most people to believe that others like them, than to believe others love them. It is even harder to believe that God could like us, not just our person but even our personality. Theoretically, theologically, we can accept that God loves us, but it's harder to believe that God could get excited about our company. When we can believe that, we're in the home stretch and feeling good about ourselves.

The merit/demerit system is a flop

Many good Christians, alas, are still there, living by the merit/demerit system of high school days. We apply our human systems to the magnificent work of God. Most people still work out of the rational model that we get what we deserve. It makes sense. But it leaves no room for mercy, does not reckon with the real meaning of God's love, which is not a merit and demerit system.

It's hard for most of us to adjust to: We were always told we would get what we worked for. That ethos is stamped on our psyches, it's what Dad told us. It takes a long time, therefore, for God's word to break down those emotional barriers and allow us to experience and enjoy communion with a completely benevolent God.

Many of us spend our lives as workaholics for God, hoping it will save our souls and make us worthy of God's kingdom, while God keeps breaking in to tell us worthiness is not the issue, but only relationship. The underlying problem is that, under such circumstances, we're never going to love God. We can't love God because we won't like such a God. We're not disposed to like anybody who holds us to a merit/demerit system. As long as our parents held us at that level, we did not love them. We put up with them, had some filial affection for them, but real love cannot emerge until we move beyond merit and demerit. Why would you love God with your whole heart and soul and strength, which is the first and essential commandment (Mark 12:28 34), unless and until you know that God has first loved you in just that way?

In the rigid merit system, we know we are not loved for ourselves but for what we do. And as soon as we fail to do it, we are not going to get the love any more. Therefore, by definition, it's not love. Such a relation to the Lord is a trip that is going nowhere: We'll find ourselves at sixty no further in the spiritual life than we were at twenty.

But the good news is that we are still producing mystics. People are always falling in love with God, especially after they recognize that God loved them when they were unlovable, God trusted them when they could not trust themselves, and God forgave them when no one else would.

Institutional evil

Institutional sin is still hard for most Christians to understand, because we haven't been trained to recognize our complicity in institutional evil or what the pope calls "structural sin." It's easier to count and confess "dirty thoughts."

As long as we deal with effects or symptoms, as long as we apply Band Aids, people regard us as religious. If we feed the hungry, that's a religious thing to do. If we give the poor money. if we heal people, if we offer them consolation, people are happy to regard us as pious and Christian and charitable.

But once we start dealing with causes, people call us political.

However, it's useless to go on indefinitely dealing with symptoms. Eventually we have to ask what is causing people to be oppressed. Or why so much of the world is hungry. This may start us talking about the role of multinational corporations. Or about the military industrial complex. Then the alarm is raised: This is talking politically, people don't want to hear this, it's not religious. We then must decide whether we really want to look at why people are poor and at how we really help the poor in the long run.

If we opt to tackle the subject seriously, we must then address social sin. The problem is compounded by the fact that all of us, often unaware, are part of those social sins. No one is pure. To tackle it may mean asking our generation to question the jobs many of us are doing. Our parents' generation never considered that. When they could get a job, they took it.

Many people have found themselves out of work in recent years because, for example, they made a decision not to support the military industrial complex. That's when faith starts.

Desire not thinking

Job's lovely, simple belief is that God is still his friend, and he only desires to be with him.

Job states: "the more I think, the greater grows my dread of him". We should take that word "think" seriously: the more we stay in our heads, the more we create scenarios of death, logjams of contradictory ideas. But somehow, Job says, I can't get through to him. "God has made my heart sink. God has filled me with fear. For darkness hides me from him, and the gloom veils his presence from me." I can no longer "think God" or think it out at all. Job is being led beyond ideas and concepts to mere desire. He has been simplified by suffering, which is what suffering always does. He is reduced to pure desire.

What we desire enough, we are likely to get. The all important thing is to desire, and to desire deeply. What we desire is what we will become. What we have already desired is who we are right now. We must ask God to fill us with right desire.

It's our profound and long lasting desires that will finally explain our lives, and will soon explain job's.

The mote is in my eye, Mate

So we get back to what Teresa of Avila began with in the first room of the "interior castle." We have to know ourselves. We shouldn't talk about a spiritual life, or about knowing God, until we know ourselves. And people who don't know themselves are, for the most part, incapable of knowing God. There is no constituted self to meet another self, much less the Self.

Our concept of God will largely be a projection of our own unfulfilled egotism, our unknown self and our desire for what we think God should be rather than what God really is. Such people never meet God; they simply meet who they want God to be, what they need God to be each moment. When God turns out not to match their expectations, they consciously or indirectly reject the search for God.

If there is a revolution in spirituality today, it is a returning to the true sense of what Jesus initially taught: that we come to God through our imperfection, through our wounds, in fact. Isn't that exactly the message of the crucified one? When we can live with him, can accept his humble, broken state, and even rejoice in it, then we're free. Then we are truly poor men and women, with nothing to protect, with no illusions to maintain before ourselves or other people. There's no other freedom to match that. Or no love!

Then we are free to walk through this world and enjoy its goodness before we need to balk at its badness. We're free to accept what is in front of us without needing to change it or control it. Always remember that the best ally of God is what is. Not what should be, what could be, what needs be, but what is. "Isness" will lead us to perfect love.

All things are partially light and partially darkness — ALL things, including the pope, the church, our bishop, and ourselves. The problem is not "out there". The problem isn't your church or the fact that your husband isn't perfect. You've got to begin, as Jesus always said, with yourself. We have met the primary enemy and it is us. What a relief when we can let go of the need to explain and fix others.

Imperfection is good enough

The reason we sin and suffer is not so much because we are weak but simply because we are human. To be human means to be imperfect and in process. Thus I would define Christian maturity as the ability to joyfully live in an imperfect world. It's the only world we have.

The only reason evil bothers us, let's admit it, is because, for the most part, things are good. Mostly, things go right. That's why we get so upset at evil. Most days, these cells go on working, these eyes go on seeing, these ears keep hearing, while we're not doing much except shoving a little food into our mouth and everything keeps operating. Surely our foundational attitude needs to be gratitude. I like to call it "an attitude of gratitude".

The underlying and constant reality of our human existence is goodness.

In our moments of inspiration and insight and Eucharist, we have to admit that somehow there is an amazing kind of grace at work and the very wonder of our existence boggles our minds. Yes, I exist, and I have existed long enough to complain. Then comes the question: Why should I even have a mouth to complain? Why should I be able to see the sky, the stars, or the faces of friends? I'm able not to enjoy only because I'm first able to enjoy.

Evil and sin are real and painful, but they are not decisive. That is what Christ came to teach us. I don't deny the reality of the world, the flesh, and the devil. All these bring evil into the world by the false promises they offer. They are real, but they are neither foundational nor final. Which leads us to what is final.

FURTHER INFORMATION: CFr Richard Rohr is a Franciscan of the New Mexico Province. He was the founder of the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1971, and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1986, where he presently serves as Founding Director. Richard was born in 1943 in Kansas. He entered the Franciscans in 1961 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1970. He received his Master's Degree in Theology from Dayton that same year. He now lives in a hermitage behind his Franciscan community in Albuquerque, and divides his time between local work, and preaching and teaching on all continents. He considers the proclamation of the Gospel to be his primary call, and uses many different platforms to communicate that message. Scripture as liberation, the integration of action and contemplation, community building, peace and justice issues, male spirituality, the enneagram, and eco-spirituality would all be themes that he addresses in service of the Gospel. He is probably best known for his numerous audio and video tapes, and through the Center's newsletter, Radical Grace. He is a regular contributing editor/writer for Sojourners magazine and recently published a 7-part Lenten Series for the National Catholic Reporter. His best known books are Adam's Return, Soul Brothers, Hope Against Darkness, The Enneagram, Simplicity, The Wild Man's Journey, Quest for the Grail, Everything Belongs, and Job and the Mystery of Suffering. His best selling tapes are the tape overview called The NEW Great Themes of Scripture. For more information on these resources visit the CAC Resource Center's The Mustard Seed. See: www.sacredartofliving.com/TOLRohr.htm (Australian distributor details click here: www.cacradicalgrace.org/resources/AustralianLetter2006forweb.pdf)

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