Hermits and Experiences of Satan?

[[Dear Sister, I wondered if you have any experience of the Devil?  I have never known what to do with the part of the faith that includes the Devil but I recently heard someone who claims the Devil messes with her all the time. She made it seem like the Devil picks on hermits and even uses them to "mess with" others. It sounded to me a lot like that old joke about "the devil made me do it" -- it's kind of an excuse for anything that goes wrong when the person doesn't want to own up to their role in it. I don't think you write about the Devil though I saw where recently you referred to Satan being called "the accuser". Do you believe in Satan or the Devil? Does he "mess with" hermits? Is that because they are more spiritual than most people?]]

Another first! Thanks for your questions, although I have to say they leave me kind of at a loss. You see, yes, I have experienced evil, but Satan? No, I have no experience with that at all. My own experience of evil was something I came (eventually) to regard as the person's illness, and I found that explaining what I had experienced made sense in terms of mental illness. What also helped me make sense of it around the same time was Paul Tillich's theology of the demonic. What Tillich does is to look at something sacred. When that is distorted, twisted, and diminished, it becomes what he calls the demonic. On the other hand, when it is raised to higher forms and even its highest form of perfection, there we have the holy. For something or someone to be raised in this way implies participation in God's life, love, goodness, and truth, that is, in the holiness of God. For them to be distorted and diminished in the way I have described means for them to move further from participation in God's life, love, truth, goodness, beauty, etc. 

Another way to think of this is how we are when we allow ourselves to be loved as opposed to who we become when we refuse to be loved and become self-centered and incapable of the truth. As human beings made in the image of God, we are capable of great good and, if that image is distorted, great evil. Tillich knew this very well and so he understood human beings as sacred and capable of great holiness in and through God. At the same time, he had watched human beings who had become seriously distorted and diminished; they were profoundly inhuman and inhumane, and Tillich identified this state as demonic. But this had nothing to do with a literal Devil or Satan. It occurred in complex ways through the influences upon and choices made by each person, just as sanctification occurs. 

Personally, I neither affirm nor deny the existence of Satan (though I do note that it is not part of the Church's creeds). I simply say Satan has little to do with my own faith which is centered on Christ and the One he called Abba in the power of the Spirit.At the same time, I don't see where human beings need a lot of help in becoming inhuman and setting genuine evil loose in our world. We are the source of systemic and institutionalized evil, and I don't think we need an external source beyond the harmful ways other human beings have treated us or encouraged and conditioned us to treat others (whether all these things occur directly or indirectly). I feel the same way you do about folks who carry on about how the Devil is messing with them, or how persecuted they are, etc. However, (though I too enjoyed the Flip Wilson sketch way back) it is not funny or entertaining to me; it is a tragedy because it involves a person who, it seems to me, has no real self-knowledge, no motivation to metanoia or change, and a limited capacity for honesty or love, including self-love and love of God.

Ironically, there is a side to this, that is even more tragic in a person who tends to blame the devil, and that is the tendency to attribute to God everything that can't be attributed to Satan. While it is true that everything good in our life ultimately comes from God and reveals God to us, it is not typical of God to speak directly to us as a rule of thumb, to come to us similarly in visions, or to will our suffering, much less to cause actual suffering. God does NOT cause suffering, nor does God will our pain. This approach to reality not only refuses to take appropriate responsibility for the things that happen to us and cause difficulties for us (which includes taking responsibility for getting appropriate help with the wounds caused by others), but it also tends to be a form of self-aggrandizement.

I know some psychologically healthy hermits whose lives are edifying, focused on, and filled with God. They are wonderfully happy. Some can occasionally reference the Devil as the power behind real suffering, but these hermits don't have a strong sense of the Devil's presence in their lives. Certainly, they don't see him lurking and ready to pounce at the slightest opportunity. Others rarely, if ever, think of Satan except as he perhaps comes up in lectio or discussions, though they are apt to be acutely aware of the reality of evil in our world. What I am saying is that it is not "normal" for hermits to be "taken" with the place of the Devil in their lives. It is not normal for hermits to deal with Satan, to want to understand Satan, (to desire to) spend time writing or speaking about Satan, etc. Hermits may certainly have experiences of real evil. They may have experienced occasions or periods of serious suffering, but blaming Satan (or God!) for these is simply not typical of these hermits. Their lives are full of the grace of God and a sense of wonder or awe at the way God has called them to Himself.

They recognize all the ways God has been at work in (and for!) them and are full of praise and love for this God. They also are well aware of their own failures and shortcomings in this and other relationships; Satan has nothing to do with these problems, though personal woundedness may well be at their heart. They work on these with their spiritual directors and others who are competent in doing this kind of work with them. They suffer, yes, as we all suffer, and they accept this suffering as a share in Christ's own suffering embraced for the sake of a new heaven and new earth where God will be all in all. What they do NOT do is blame Satan nor play Satan off against God with themselves as some sort of victim or pawn of either or both!! (Note, those who are also "victims" of God will frame their victimhood in pious categories of grace, or "mysticism", or they may even identify themselves as a "Victim Soul".) 

In either case, just as you recognize, such a person, for whom victimhood (whether Divine or demonic) is a defining category of their life, tends to disavow appropriate responsibility for their suffering and difficulties. This can include resisting or rejecting therapy or other forms of assistance for original or core woundedness, and sometimes rejecting getting help for an ongoing paranoia about being persecuted or harassed by everyone around them. From my perspective, such a person's relationship with God is distorted and becomes seriously disedifying. Whenever God is made the direct cause of suffering or the one who directly wills and brings pain, serious theological errors have occurred in the name of a significantly flawed "spirituality".  In any case, the hermits I know, though profoundly spiritual and usually experienced with an authentic sense of what the desert tradition calls struggling or doing battle with demons**, tend to see themselves as simply way too inconsequential for Satan (or, The Devil) to have any interest in. 

** Please see articles on battling or struggling with demons for the way I use these terms

Looking Again at Jesus' Suffering and the Notion of Victim Souls

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I really appreciated the piece you put up on suffering effectively -- sorry, witnessing effectively to suffering. I especially liked what you said about a micro drop of skunk scent and how very far it goes. I've been watching and reading a hermit whose approach to suffering is very different than yours. Not only are they always talking about how they suffer (the scent of skunk is overpowering and keeps me from watching the videos), but seems to me they believe that God sends or causes the suffering. I don't know, but even if God has something to teach us it is incomprehensible to me that God is responsible for suffering.  Besides, what I learned was that what God wants to teach us is how much He loves us. Isn't that the answer to every problem or need? So here are my other questions: Do you believe God wanted Jesus to suffer? Do you believe in "victim souls"? Is the hardest thing about being a hermit the suffering one does? If people don't understand this vocation what is the most important thing they fail to understand?]]

Thanks for your comments and questions. They come up (or used to come up) a lot, and of course, the question of Jesus' suffering is central to our faith -- and is most often misunderstood in terms of placating an angry or offended God. In that regard, I have said many times that what God willed was not Jesus' suffering but his openness to letting God be God and his integrity in the face of every trial he faces. I do completely agree with your rhetorical question, [[Isn't that the answer to every problem or need?]] We are called to witness to the Good News and a God who wills for us to suffer or who even causes that suffering is not that!!!

You might look for the posts where I looked at Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and how I understand the conversation that goes on between Jesus and his Abba. There are two links that are recent on this: Jesus' Prayer in Gethsemane and the followup to that, Jesus' Call to Integrity. I believe it all depends on how we imagine God responding to Jesus' hope that surely there is another way to live his vocation besides the path he is looking at immediately. If we imagine God saying, "it must be this way, I need your suffering so I can forgive sin," then I think theologically we are lost. If, on the other hand, we imagine God saying, "Live who you are in this as you have lived that your entire life; live your integrity and I will be with you in anything and everything," then we have begun to understand the theology of the Cross that is at the heart of the Good News upon which our lives and faith depend!!

I have also written on the concept of victim souls, which I believe has become more of a problem in contemporary society than it was in earlier times.  This is because we have become enamored of status of almost any sort at all, and for some, it is their victim status they like to flaunt. Thus, today (I am not speaking of more historic cases) you are apt to find online the self-proclaimed victim soul ensconced in their bed, huddled against their pillows speaking feebly of how God has willed their terrible pain and suffering while gaining additional strength upon speaking of how tormented and persecuted they have been by everyone in their adult lives. Now that video recording is possible, the histrionic quality of some of these portrayals can be captured with fascinating clarity. They may be temporarily seductive to some (like a freeway accident can be to those driving past), and some may be moved by compassion and compelled to try to help or give support; to others, however, as is true for you, the scent of skunk is overpowering, and the whole situation is so theologically disedifying, that one really cannot continue attempting to watch them. I first wrote a long post about this in 2008. Here is the link: Questions on Chronic Illness, Victim Souls, etc.

As you will see, I don't believe in victim souls, particularly not as a divine vocation. I note that the idea of victim souls is not official Catholic teaching but is linked instead to private revelations no one is required to believe. Suffering is, of course, very real and I do believe that chronic illness and disability can be thought of as vocational, though never in terms of God willing the person's suffering. Once we reframe the story of Jesus' suffering in the way we have done above our ability to let go of this destructive (victim soul) theology as well as concepts of reparative theology that sees what Jesus did as objectively inadequate and still requiring victim souls is greatly enhanced. 

Over the years I have watched those few in this time who consider themselves victim souls and despite all their talk of the love of God, I simply cannot shake the sense that their God is a sadist whose cruelty is underscored by a piety rooted in the subject's subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle self-hatred and inability to truly love others. Even more, I have the sense these supposed "victim souls" don't truly think anyone else suffers as significantly as they do --- or as heroically! It is tragic, really, because such persons seem to lack the humility necessary to allow God's redemption. Once we convince ourselves that God causes even our most profound suffering and wills it, we have also limited our capacity to receive God's love as fully as God wills to give it. As I have quoted several times, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, [[ Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that occurs happens outside the will of God!]] In other words, if we begin and end with the love of God even the evil that occurs (and this includes our suffering) can and will be redeemed because God has embraced the whole of our reality in Christ and made it his own.

Your last questions ask about the hardest thing about living as a hermit and what it is important for people to know about this vocation. I am not sure I can give you a single thing that is hardest about this vocation. Some things are hard during some time periods and other things are hard at other times. For instance, the meaningfulness of eremitical life is a major question hermits must come to understand and that understanding is often a struggle. We trust that God has called us to this vocation and the Church has verified that call as best they can; she has consecrated and commissioned us to live and explore it. We have to live into the truth of this and explain to ourselves and sometimes to others as well how it is our lives are meaningful and a gift to the Church and the larger world. 

Sometimes the tedium associated with this life is most difficult as we live our faithfulness in the everyday ordinary things we must do again and again. And again and again. And too, for some of us, the suffering associated with illness or disability can be significant and lonely; it is isolating in a way that militates against the silence of solitude and must be redeemed and transfigured by God's love. Finally, I find the demands of the inner work I do regularly can be very difficult, especially as unexpected depths within me open up and flood my present with pain. Ironically, with this last also come some of the most exhilarating times of grace and Divine victory so as much as I might dislike aspects of it, the work itself is compelling.

The most important thing I think people should know is that this vocation is about personal truth and transparency, living the truth of who one is while becoming ever more transparent to God (because God is a constitutive part of our existence). It is not about escape or quiet relaxation (though relaxation is very real too); it is an intense life that is constantly surprising as God draws one deeper into the Mystery He is. As I said in another post, I want others to understand this is a true (though rare) vocation. It speaks to every person about who they are, the place of God in that, and the importance of letting God be God as the priority of our lives. I think all these things are things people fail to understand about eremitic lives.

Followup Questions: Chronic Illness, Victim Souls, God and Suffering, etc

[[Hi Again, Sister O'Neal! Thanks for answering my questions [about a vocation to chronic illness] with more of your own story. You said, "Especially, I am no victim!" Are you familiar with the idea of "victim souls"? Do you think this is a helpful idea? What do you think about the notion that God sends suffering to one person and then eases the suffering of another as a result? I have even read where one person who has been characterized as a victim soul receives some grace and then EXPECTS to suffer because of this grace that was given. That doesn't make sense to me. Yet is it really so awful to be a "victim"? Wouldn't being a "victim soul" be a very special vocation?]]

Victim Soul Theology, an Introduction

First, let me be clear that this whole notion of victim souls is not official Catholic theology. There are some superficial precedents for it in Jewish theology of scapegoating, and superficial correspondence with Sacred Heart theology and the like. For this reason teasing out the legitimate from the illegitimate is not always easy to do. But generally, what commonly passes for "victim soul" theology is a misguided attempt to make some sense of personal suffering which is rooted in a REALLY bad reading of Paul's notion that we are to "make up what was lacking" in the sufferings of Christ. More, it is based on a terribly distorted idea of God as the one who sends suffering, and indeed, who bargains with people to accept additional suffering in order to relieve someone else's, or (worse yet) who even punishes one with suffering after gracing them with something joyful. What kind of God works this way? Not one I could ever believe in, and certainly not one worthy of worship --- at least not if worship is a function of love, as I believe it must be!!!

Also,(with the exception of the Christ Event, where God in Christ took on suffering himself and in the limited sense the word actually applies, was OUR VICTIM) to believe that God causes one to suffer (or sends suffering) and applies it to another means that one believes God is playing some great game with each of us and is in complete control of the suffering in this world. More, and even more problematical, it is a "theology" which believes that God can be convinced to relieve someone's suffering if another person is willing to undertake it in her place. It is as though there is some great quota of suffering in the world as a whole which God needs us to experience in order to be placated or satisfied or something. Even (or perhaps especially!) Anselm's theory of satisfaction never got this crude, and it was already a complete misunderstanding of Paul. Let me explain.


Another look at the Theology of The Cross: Paul vs Anselm

Despite some strands of common piety which hold otherwise, it was not Jesus' suffering per se which was redemptive (though it was absolutely essential), but rather his entering exhaustively into the realms of human sin and death while remaining obedient (that is, open and responsive) to God in spite of the depths of his failure, fear, suffering, etc. This obedience unto death, even death on a cross (that is, not just natural, death-as-transition, but sinful, godless death-unto-oblivion!) meant that God could now enter completely into these realms from which he would otherwise be excluded by human sin in order to transform them with his presence. Once this occurs, their power (which is the power to isolate and separate one from God, and thus from life and meaning) is broken definitively.

In Anselm's satisfaction theology Christ's death makes up for the infinite dishonor done to God. Christ's suffering is not a way to enter exhaustively into our situation so that situation can be objectively changed. Instead the debt of sin, a debt owed to God's honor, is paid in terms of suffering. God is offended and needs to be reconciled, placated, his anger etc, assuaged. But this, despite superficial linguistic similarities, is precisely the antithesis of what Paul provides in his theology of the cross. For Paul, the Christ Event works to overcome the objective chasm that exists between the world and God. It works to bring the world back to God and to friendship with him. It works to overcome the estrangement, alienation, and antipathy towards God, and it does all these things not by appeasing God's anger (which would be a subjective change) but by implicating God in precisely those aspects of his creation from which he has been excluded (i.e.,his death effects an objective change in reality). Thus, Jesus' suffering is necessary for he must plumb the depths of human sin and sinful death; unless he does there will remain depths of Godlessness which are not overcome by his obedience (openness and responsiveness) to God. However, it is not the suffering per se that is redemptive. Instead it is is Jesus' complete dependence on God in spite of everything which might otherwise separate him from God by tempting to sin (that is, to remain dependent upon himself and his own resources) that is salvific.

As in Christ's life, of itself suffering is not redemptive; it is our dependence upon God, our remaining open to God's grace (God's living self) in spite of and within that suffering that is redemptive, for it implicates God into the places or realms from which he would otherwise be excluded. (Realms like sin and death are also personal realms, and God cannot simply force his way into them, or overcome them by fiat; they imply human decisions to live --- and therefore to die --- without God, and thus they come to be embodied realities which are deeply personal. This is why Paul refers to "this body of death," and describes death as a power or principality with influence in our lives. God does not force his way into any area of our lives, though he is present both within and without those lives, and eagerly waits to be allowed to be sovereign over even their darkest regions or dimensions.) This is what Paul is referring to when he writes in 2 Cor 5:19 that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

To reiterate, in Paul's theology of the cross and contrary to Anselm's version, God is not in need of reconciliation: we are. God is bringing the far places we journey in and through, and our own prodigality under his own sovereignty; he is transforming godless realities within and around us into sacramental realities where he may be met face to face. God's wrath is not an all-too-human anger or emotional response, but the fact that God allows the consequences of our sins to run their course. (Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle) We use anthropomorphic terms to speak of divine wrath, but they are singularly inadequate. Meanwhile, Jesus' passion is not inadequate; it has dealt a definitive and terminal blow to sin and death. However, that victory must become personal to us; it must touch and redeem the sin and death we have embodied within ourselves, our lives, and all our lives touch. It is only in this sense that we are called upon "to make up for what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ". We allow the suffering and obedient Christ into our PERSONAL realm, and through him in the power of the Spirit work to bring all of it into the life of the Trinity.

So suffering does not appease or placate God. Suffering is a consequence of creation's estrangement and brokenness and one which God takes on himself. It becomes the gateway into the realms of sin and death because largely it is the result of the effects of sin and godless death in this world and tempts (or leads) us either to depend upon ourselves or to hand our lives over to God. Therefore, at the same time then, these can be gateways of grace for they open us to the need for God's love and mercy, but they do not come directly from his hand. Especially, God does not send suffering nor engage in some kind of distorted calculus of suffering where SOMEONE must suffer and the question is merely who will be made to do it. Examples of such a perverse calculus would include the following: "If I suffer willingly, God will relieve x's pain," or "If I suffer, a person a world (or era) away (and unaware of me) will be prevented from sinning," or again, "I am suffering this pain so that x's painful dying might be eased (also where x is unaware of me and we are not speaking about her being edified by my own suffering, etc)." These beliefs are superstitious, not expressions of faith.

Beyond being superstitious, what kind of God would such a calculus of suffering reveal? First, it would be a "god" who directly sends both suffering and its relief, and who, for arbitrary reasons might relieve some suffering so long as someone else can be found to take it on. He would be a "god" who bargains with his creatures, a tyrannical torturer or sadist who somehow needs a certain amount of suffering to be "satisfied" and never mind who does it. In such a scheme suffering is not merely the result, the tragic consequence of sin created and exacerbated by our inhumanities or by the brokenness and incompleteness of creation, but is the result of a God who directly punishes his creation for sin. And of course this punishment falls arbitrarily on the heads of the innocent and the guilty alike while asserting that God can PERHAPS be convinced to relieve the suffering of some and apply it to others. The notion you referred to in your question that God will grace a person and then punish them with suffering because they were graced is simply too perverse and unChristian to respond to. It sounds more like a portrait of a paranoid schizophrenic parent dealing with a child than the God of Jesus Christ. Sorry, but in my estimation, these notions are perversions of the idea of divine justice, and parodies of the God of Jesus Christ --- not one whom we can really love or worship.

Legitimate Views of Suffering?

It is one thing to act as Maximillian Kolbe did and give away bread and soup while being fed in other ways, and eventually to even ask to stand in and be executed in another's place so that that man might live and return to his family. It is entirely another to believe that one's own physical pain can/may be used by God to relieve the suffering of someone dying of cancer in a crude kind of substitution for instance. To believe this presupposes a God who could stop or mitigate a person's suffering but does not do so because the suffering is needed to fill some cosmic quota or something. (The idea that God requires our suffering to appease his being offended by sin is certainly no better.) It is one thing to accept the suffering that befalls one with equanimity and courage, and as an opportunity to share in Christ's own cross by remaining open to and dependent upon God therein; when one does this, God is implicated in one's suffering and redeems it. Again, it is entirely another thing to beg God to send suffering so that he might relieve the suffering in another, or to attribute suffering to him which is some sort of payback because he graced one with something wonderful or joyful that day. In the first instance there is some generosity involved we should honor (the willingness to suffer in another's place), but the theology involved is simply unjustifiable and possibly unconscionable.

Magical Thinking is not okay.

It is one thing to know that if one suffers well (that is, suffers patiently in complete dependence on the love and support of God in this suffering), God is allowed to dwell more fully in our world and one becomes a part of Jesus' own work of bringing the Kingdom. In such a case one's suffering may indeed touch and edify others; it may indeed convince them of the grace of a God who enters exhaustively into our reality and transforms it with his presence. It will also contribute to the healing of the whole world in the sense that personal holiness does this. But it is entirely another thing to think in magical terms, or in terms of a religious quid pro quo, or to suggest that God makes one suffer so that he may have mercy on someone else and relieve their suffering. As one friend of mine points out, such a God is not the God of Jesus Christ; he is Moloch! (And, should you doubt that there are those who hold such views, search the web; this kind of nonsense is not hard to find. It is a holdover of some of the very worst French Revivalist piety and deserves a quick and deep burial.)

Rejection of the Term "Victim Soul"

Even when I think of Maximillian Kolbe I can't accept there is a place for the category "victim soul" and I especially doubt it is a phrase or status someone like Fr Kolbe would have applied to himself (or that anyone living should do), particularly given the degree of suffering that went on all around him in Auschwitz. What defined Fr Kolbe was not his suffering, though that was plentiful and profound; what defined him was his love of God, his own experience of God's love, and his authentic humanity and selflessness in spite of his suffering. He was known for and was transparent to being nourished, fed, and consoled in ways which make the term victim particularly inadequate, I think. Ordinarily, as the Bishop of Worster noted in regard to a celebrated case of a comatose girl in his diocese who was "billed" as a victim soul, this is a term the Church herself uses for Christ alone; at best we can use it for others only with very great caution.

Generally, at least when it is self-applied, it is often an arrogant term associated at best with people who simply have suffering in their lives and must deal with it as we all must; too often these persons are unaware of how much suffering others undergo on a regular basis. At worst such a self-applied designation is associated with unstable narcissists struggling to find a way to give meaning to the suffering in their lives (which, historically at least, they often willfully exacerbate) while inadvertantly denigrating or distorting the God of Jesus Christ in the process. This is especially true when it is based on theologies which see God as the sender of suffering who doesn't care who does it just so long as the cosmic quota of pain is met, or when it assumes one's own suffering makes one special and allows one to forego ordinary treatment and prudent behavior to minimize it. It is also especially true today when everyone is tempted to see themselves as a victim in one way and another, and when victim status is one of the most disedifying and truly "worldly" dimensions of our society. Since the phenomenon of the "victim soul" is particularly linked to women, many of whom were completely oppressed in one way and another, and often have a history of self-mutilation, cutting, binding, etc, it is one of those phenomona about which the Church is indeed right to be skeptical, or at least VERY CAUTIOUS.

We ALL Share the Cross of Christ

It should go without saying that we are all called upon to share in the cross of Christ. We are called upon to bear the suffering that comes our way in union with him and in complete dependence upon his Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Also, we are called upon to believe that our own suffering and its redemption has dimensions and scope which transcend our own private world. It contributes to the perfection and fulfillment of God's creation, and when undertaken in faith, can edify others who come to recognize the victory of God in the transformation of one's life and the transfiguration of one's pain. We join ourselves to the crucified and risen Christ and in this sharing of HIS life our own pain becomes a holy space where light may be brought forth from darkness, life from death, and meaning from absurdity. Suffering in this way implicates God more fully into the pain and brokenness of the world. It allows even pain to become sacramental. This is a completely legitimate theology of suffering.

Once again, Suffering Does not Appease or Reconcile an Angry God

But note that what suffering in this way does NOT do is make up some sort of cosmic (or Divine) quota, as though there is a fixed price for sin which God exacts, and nevermind who pays it.  As I noted above, God does not need to be reconciled; we do. It is not the case that God needs us to suffer to be placated or appeased or in order that "payment" be made for our own or others' sins. (The question of why Paul uses such terms in his theology of the cross is another question, but for now let me say he has been misread more often than not.) If someone is dying of cancer, for instance, I cannot bargain with God to ease their pain and give it to me instead. I cannot treat God as though he is the cosmic distributor of suffering, or some sort of punisher. What I CAN do is sit with the person through the pain of their illness and dying, and share in that. I CAN and SHOULD bring Christ to her in whatever ways possible. Sin has consequences and suffering is certainly one of them, but this does not make God the direct dispenser of pain or the One who demands retribution. This is a completely illegitimate theology of suffering. Much commonly-held Victim soul theology is at least implicitly based on such a perverse notion of God and those who claim to be victim souls need to consider this.

Victim Souls, a Special Vocation?

As for whether this is a special vocation I have to disagree. We are ALL called upon to accept and join our sufferings with Christ so that they and our world may be redeemed (that is brought to wholeness and perfection by being reconciled and transformed). Do SOME suffer more in this world than others? Undoubtedly, but how really are we to either quantify or qualify this? More, are they victims? Of what or whom? Certainly not of God! Personally, I find the entire terminology objectionable. As I noted above, our world (especially the 1st world portion of it) is too enamored of victimhood. Everyone is a victim, and they exalt in it! It becomes their whole identity, and that is truly tragic. The notion of a victim soul in such a milieu is particularly unacceptable or objectionable. What this world needs are martyrs (witnesses to the grace and Gospel of God that brings wholeness and peace in spite of their suffering), or prophets (those who speak God's Word into the present situation with a power that transforms it). What we need are men and women with the courage to be something other than victims!!! We do not need more victims, especially those who dress up such status in perverse piety and the notion that somehow such perversity glorifies the infinitely merciful God of Jesus Christ.

A Followup Question on "Bearing Our Crosses"

[[Can you say more about this idea that God does not send us crosses, but rather sends us into a world which is full of them and commissions us to carry them? How can you say that God did not send Jesus the cross he agreed to carry?]]

First, let me say that all the crosses that come our way come with the "permissive will" of God. However, too often we interpret the fact that God "permits" something to happen as though it is equivalent to the notion that he wants it to happen. The use of the word "will" in the term "permissive will" can be somewhat misleading therefore, and it can be associated with the idea that God is in total control (which, by the way, is not the same thing as affirming he is sovereign); sometimes when the term "permissive will" is used, we imagine something like options or possibilities being run past God so that he may intervene or not, say no or not: will she be sick or not; will disaster strike this person or not; should she suffer this pain or that loss, or not; will she die or not; etc? God is ALWAYS on the side of life, not death.

But God is NOT in total control, nor does he stand in the midst of the world's possibilities like someone making a deathcamp-selection of who shall suffer and who shall not. There are, as Paul clearly states, powers and principalities at work in our world, including death and sin, which God is in the process of bringing under complete subjection to himself. In Christ he has won the decisive victory over these realities or realms, but he is not yet "all in all" and some aspects of the world remain yet untouched or unchanged (or perhaps better said, inadequately or incompletely touched or changed) by his presence. Our world is marked not only by order, but by disorder, not only by meaning, but by senselessness, not only by truth but by falsehood and falseness. And God permits all this because it is the price of a free creation who can eventually turn responsively to him in genuine love.

My comments regarding God NOT sending us the crosses we are called upon to carry was largely based on the distorted but very common view of how permissive will operates or "what it looks like". It was meant to stress that, in fact, things happen which God does not directly will or send. That he permits them is not to say he wills them, nor even less that he wants them to happen. He works at all times to redeem the world, every aspect of it, and to reclaim it from the powers of sin and death. The decisive victory, once again, has been won, but there is yet work to do and the result for us is the crosses that ordinary life sends our way daily. Will these crosses eventually disappear? Yes, for one day God will truly be all in all and there will be complete victory over sin and death.


Dietrich Bonhoeffer once summarized the entire situation in a quote I like very much, and have used here before, I think. He said, "Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that does happen happens OUTSIDE the will of God." God is sovereign in this world. Ultimately he will be the total victor, of that there is no doubt. But in the meantime he is not in COMPLETE control. For this to become reality means that you and I must take on the crosses life sends our way, wherever they come from! If we do this worthily IN CHRIST, then these symbols and bits of sinful, death-dealing reality will eventually be transformed into sacraments of God's presence and love, just as the cross WE PLACED ON JESUS' SHOULDERS, and the death he died, was transformed into a sacrament of God's presence.

There is one other problem with thinking that God sends the crosses that come into our lives. Most of the time these crosses are fashioned, as I noted yesterday or so, with bloody human hands and from the twisted, frightened, defensive human heart. Our tendency to think that God sent the cross that Jesus died on has sometimes prevented us from seeing that he REALLY AND TRULY died at our hands under the control of our torturers as crowds of us stood and jeered and mocked, and as our religious people orchestrated the matter even while they tore their clothes in anguish in feigned --- or delusional --- innocence. The cross was completely and wholly fashioned and laid on him by sinful human hands and hearts. When I consider what it was that God willed, it was that Jesus enter exhaustively into our flawed and distorted reality; God willed that he drink as deeply as possible from the cup of our lot, that he experience the very worst of what humans can do AND THAT HE REMAIN OPEN AND RESPONSIVE (OBEDIENT) TO HIS FATHER AND THE SPIRIT in spite of it all. Did he will Jesus' crucifixion per se? No, but there is no doubt it came to Jesus as a piece of the life he lived; still, it was very much something that WE WILLED and did to him. I can hardly agree that our will and God's were identical here except in the most paradoxical and ironic way!

On the other hand, there is another side to the equation I set out: namely, that God sends us, as he did Jesus, into our world and commissions us to carry the crosses the world lays upon us! God's will of course, is to be "all in all" as the Pauline phrase goes. The way that happens is by human beings bringing (allowing) God into those places he cannot force his way into. Jesus did this as exhaustively as he could by dying the deepest most "godforsaken death" one could die while yet remaining open to and dependent upon his Father to make sense out of it, to bring life out of it, and to turn the most horrific human injustice into the source and absolute measure of divine justice/mercy. We must extend this achievement to all the dark and unhealthy places that remain, and that means taking on life's crosses and allowing God to transform them with his presence. God has given us a mission in this world: we are to participate in its perfecting and being brought to fulfillment. This means we are to share in God's own destiny and make it our own; we do this by embracing both God and the crosses (as well as the great joys!) life sends our way.


But God goes further still than simply commissioning us to carry them. He accompanies us in this. More, like Simon the Cyrene, he helps us carry them; he takes a lot of their weight upon himself. He not only did this in Jesus so that our crosses are never as heavy as they might have been without the Christ Event, but he does it now, moment by moment. The image I like very much here is the picture of Jesus holding a young man up. The cross --- whatever it actually is is unclear, though the picture refers to the divine healer --- is the young man's, but the young man is Christ's and so Jesus carries or upholds both the young man and his burden. In all of this God wills to extend his sovereignty (that is, life lived solely in light of his love and mercy) to the whole of reality.

A Distinction between Willing and Commissioning

Perhaps another image will help us distinguish between what God wills for us, and what he commission us to do. When someone joins the armed services in order to protect or extend certain values to the whole world, the officers do not will for men and women to be hurt or die. The commission they are given is one of fighting and bringing peace and other values to a region, for instance. In the process, some will be captured, some will be tortured, others will suffer in all manner of other ways, and many will die. The officers do not will these things and they work in all kinds of ways to prevent them from happening, but the commission remains and it means taking on these kinds of things in the process of carrying it out. A less militant, but more effective image might be the peace corps: the commission is to educate, build community, enhance societies, etc. The means to carrying this commision will entail suffering, hardship, crosses. Does the peace corps as sponsoring organization WILL or WANT these things? No, but taking them on is very often part of the volunteer's commission and the Peace Corp will assist the person in doing so.

My response regarding Jesus is based upon this distinction. God willed for Jesus what was entailed in a life completely obedient to Him, or better, perhaps, he willed a completely obedient (open, attentive, responsive) life which would implicate Jesus' Father and their mutual Spirit into every moment and mood of human existence. Jesus was commissioned in this way. The general mission was God-willed; the specific cross on which he died, and thus, the manner of his passion and death was fashioned by the world and laid on Jesus' shoulders by human hands and hearts. Now let me say that I think it is possible and necessary to say that God willed this particular cross, and embraced it himself, but one needs to make our own role in it completely clear in doing so. That becomes even more important when we are dealing with the crosses that life hands us, but that God has never willed for us.

I hope this clarifies a bit more what I was saying in my last post. Again, please get back to me if it raises more questions or causes greater confusion!!

On Bearing the Crosses that Come our Way

[[1) Are there such things as "unworthy" crosses, or "unholy" crosses? 2) Is God only able to use "holy crosses", or "worthy crosses" in our lives?? 3) Does he simply remove these ["unworthy"] crosses for us??]]

Well, it's an interesting couple of questions, but the answer to the first one is no (or potentially so), and the answer to the second question is a definite no!! The third one is a bit more nuanced, so see below. Let me start with the second question, which is more straightforward, and more clearly theological. It will provide the basis for answering the first and third questions as well.



To begin we must start with the central paradigm and symbol of our faith, the Cross of Christ. When we think of the Cross of Christ and Christ's passion it is critically important to remember that what was most significant about it was not the agonizing physical torture associated with it, horrific as this was, but rather the shame, offensiveness, and scandal of the cross. There was nothing holy, or worthy, or respectable about the cross Jesus assumed as his own. Quite the contrary. It was in every way the cross formed and shaped from and by human sinfulness, depravity, cruelty, inhumanity, and shamefulness --- not from human nobility, compassion, integrity, or anything similar. This cross represented the antithesis of the holy, the good, or the noble. It was understood to represent Godlessness (anti-life, anti-holiness, etc.) in as absolute a way as anything could. And of course, it is THIS shameful, unholy cross that God uses to redeem and reconcile his entire creation! (I am not going into this theology of how that happens in detail here; I have done that other places so please check the tags in the right hand column to find those articles re how the cross works, or the "Theology of the Cross".)

With this in mind, I think I can now approach the answer to your first question. There is no doubt that many of the crosses that afflict our lives are the result of unworthy choices, whether our own or another's. Not all the crosses we are called to bear are the result of an unchosen illness, for instance. People hurt one another, sometimes deeply and in ways which leave wounds which are difficult to work with or treat. Children are abused by parents and their capacities to love, trust, or live can be badly impaired. Adults sin seriously and impair their own and others' physical and emotional health in the process. In so many ways we carry the scars of these events, sometimes for years and years, sometimes our whole lives long. When you refer to unworthy or unholy crosses I think you are probably referring to these kinds of things, crosses that are the result of sin, inhumanity, cruelty, and the like. They are not unworthy in and of themselves, but they are the result of choices which are unworthy of both God and mankind, so let me go with that understanding for the moment.

What do we do with the Crosses the World Sends our Way?

So, what are we to do with such crosses? And further, can God use these for his own purposes even if he does not "send them"? Well, as with any cross we are to bear them patiently. HOWEVER, to bear them in this way does not mean simply to carry on without treatment, therapy, necessary personal work, healing and the like. To bear these kinds of crosses REQUIRES we work to allow the healing we need to live and love fully as human beings. This correlative work is actually a piece of bearing our cross patiently, ironic or contradictory as that may initially sound.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. A child who is abused will grow up scarred; it is a cross she will have to bear for her whole life, though not necessarily always in the same way. However, it is a cross which will need to be borne precisely by taking on therapy and the hard work of healing. Were she to refuse this work and thus allowed her life to be dominated or defined completely by the past, she would not be embracing her cross or bearing it patiently, but denying and rejecting it. One does not embrace one's cross by refusing to live fully. To bear a cross patiently means to take on LIFE in its shadow, and marked by its weight and imprint, but also to do so with the grace of God which brings life out of death, wholeness out of brokenness, joy out of sorrow, and meaning out of senselessness. It does NOT mean to forego the challenges of living fully in the name of some piously-rationalized cowardice and "victimologization". For instance, the abused person would not be bearing her cross patiently if she said, "Well, God sent this cross, so I will simply accept all the consequences, dysfunction, crippled human capacities, and distortions that come with it. Don't talk to me about therapy, or moving out of this abusive relationship, or working hard to change the situation, etc!"

Prescinding from the idea that God sent this cross for the moment (a notion which I personally reject and explain below), what this attitude describes instead is capitulation to what Paul calls the powers of sin and death which are so active in our world. It is the refusal to allow God to redeem the situation, the refusal to be free in the Christian sense, and represents the embracing of bondage or slavery instead. It is an act of collusion with the destructive effects and process of the cross. Whether one is motivated by cowardice, hopelessness, masochism, or some other similar thing, in this case the pious sounding, "God sent this cross so I will accept it, all its consequences, dysfunction,. . ." is a refusal to live fully, to seek genuine holiness and humanity. It is a refusal of God's grace as it usually comes to us as well, for God's grace here ordinarily comes to us through things like the processes of therapy, spiritual direction, personal work, and all the relationships and changes which bring Christ's own hard-won healing and wholeness.

Can God Use unworthy Crosses?


Can God use these "unworthy" crosses for his purposes? Of course. Why would he not be able to? To suggest otherwise is to say that God is incapable of redeeming certain aspects of his creation, or of making all things work for good in those who love him and let him love them. It is to suggest the Christ Event was a failure, and today's passage from Romans 8 ("nothing will separate us from the love of God") is hyperbole at best, and a lie at worst. God may not have sent this cross, but there is no doubt that he can use it as a unique mediating source of grace in one's life. We grow in all kinds of ways when we embrace the unavoidable difficulties life throws our way, but especially when we do so in faith and in concert with God's grace. This points up another way of refusing to carry one's cross, an unusual way I think, but one nonetheless. It is a refusal to carry one's cross to say, "God did not send it, so let's just be rid of it (or ignore it, etc). I cannot grow in this virtue or that one in light of this cross because it is unworthy, unholy, and God did not send it." In fact, God ordinarily does NOT send the crosses that come our way. They are forged instead in the workshops of human sin, stupidity, cruelty and violence --- just as Jesus' cross was. And yet, he expects us to take them on with his grace so that he might redeem us and our world. I don't for an instant believe that God sent chronic illness, injury and pain for me to live with, however, he can use these with my cooperation to transform both me and my world. I don't for an instant believe that God sends the crosses that are the result of abuse, neglect, carelessness, cruelty and the like, but there is no doubt that he can use these to transfigure their sufferers and our world.

Does God Simply Remove unworthy Crosses?

Your last question was a bit more of a surprise than the other two and you may need to say more about it for me to answer adequately. Let me take a stab at it though. Does God simply remove these crosses for us? My first answer is no, though I am sure he COULD do. My second or related response is a question, namely, "why should he?" I suppose in some way this question stems from your other two: if a cross is unholy and unworthy and God did not send it, then why shouldn't he simply remove it? But the simple fact is that crosses become holy and worthy in the bearing of them! They are "worthy" or "holy" crosses only when the one afflicted by them bears them worthily and in holiness. These crosses become something other than the result of human sinfulness and cruelty only when they are borne with grace --- and here grace does not simply mean superficial equanimity (or something less noble like grudging resignation!); it means "with the life-giving life and power of God's accompanying love." God has chosen to redeem this world by participating in its crosses, but as with Jesus, that means that one has to take the cross on in a conscious way and walk with it. Of course we will fall under its weight from time to time. Jesus did as well. But in the end, it is only in this way that God can take on sin and death, enter into them exhaustively, and transform them with his presence. We take these things on as a piece of Jesus' own redemptive work; we cannot eschew such a burden and be true to our callings.

Theologically, it makes no sense to me to try and distinguish between those crosses which are sent by God and are worthy of being borne, and those which are not. Partly that is because I don't believe God sends crosses so much as he sends the means by which they may be redeemed and become redemptive. Partly it is because it is precisely the unholy and unworthy that God takes on WITH US (and in us!), in such cases, transforming them into something of real worth and holiness. Did God send Jesus the cross he took on! NO, it was entirely a human construct made with our own bloody hands and twisted, frightened hearts, but absolutely he did send Jesus into our world to TAKE IT ON! Do you hear the difference? Does he send us the crosses that come our way? No, but he sends us into the world so that we might be part of its redemption and fulfillment and that means he sends us into the world to take on the various crosses that COME OUR WAY "naturally" (and by "naturally" I mean that come our way through the human sinfulness, cruelty, and violence we meet everyday).



No cross is worthy or holy until it is borne with grace and courage. God does not send crosses per se, but he sends us into a world full of them expecting to help us in their redemption, and he certainly commissions us to carry the crosses that come our way. The only other point that needs to be reiterated is that we bear crosses patiently only when we choose to live fully in spite of them, and in taking them on with the grace of God accompanying and empowering us. That means we take on the therapy, medical care (including appropriate medications for pain, etc), personal work of healing, and so forth that are part of these crosses. If someone has hurt us, even if they have hurt us very badly, it also means taking on the work and the PROCESS of healing we call forgiveness. This can take years and years of course; it is not simply an act of will --- even though it involves such acts (sometimes many of them in renewed intentions to let the past go). It requires assistance, not only of God, but physicians, psychologists, confessors, spiritual directors, and friends. The bottom line is there are many ways to refuse to carry a cross including labelling them unworthy or unholy and waiting for God to simply remove them, but to carry them means more than to simply accept the events that forged them initially; it means to accept everything necessary to transform and redeem them and ourselves as their bearers as well.

I hope this answers your questions; if I misunderstood them in some way, please get back to me and clarify.