I’ve always been a lover of history. Not sure why that is. But I wonder if it’s because history affords us the opportunity to enter into others’ suffering and realize the triumph they experienced when they “made it through.”
Recently, my wife and I watched a movie titled, "I Heard the Bells," a film chronicling the life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the great 19th century poet who penned the famous Christmas song, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” My family enjoys supporting movies with a strong Judeo-Christian message. But we weren’t sure about this one. Often, so many of those “hope-heavy” movies are so leavened with false utopian writing they become sterile, absent the depths of suffering encountered by the characters prior to their ascension to hope. This one didn’t. Amidst the ravages of the American Civil War, the loss of a child and two wives, Mr. Longfellow seeks to rise from the ashes but finds it difficult, at best.
Suffering is no fun. Unfortunately, I encountered much of it in my former career as a police officer. Much was human made. Some was not. Over the course of my career, I came to the realization that humans can perpetrate unimaginable evils upon each other. I also came to understand that humans have an ability to show such levels of selflessness that it can only be described as “divine.” Suffering exists for the good and the bad. And our human nature — especially mine — will always be seeking a place where its specter ceases to exist.
“I thought as now this day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rung so long the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men …”
My students and I spoke about this subject recently as we studied the idea of redemptive suffering. To be sure, there are times when teaching sophomores is an exercise in “redemptive suffering.” But that’s not the kind I’m talking about.
History is replete with stories of people who “overcome.” And it’s much easier to read about it in the history books — when we know the outcome — than it is to wallow in the midst of it in our own lives. I wonder if sometimes the tendency for us all, amidst our present circumstances, is to forget the transformation God wishes to bestow on us through them. That’s not to say we need to go looking for crosses. But perhaps a stark realization of all the landmines we avoid with God’s help is a good starting point.
I was honored to manage the chaplain program during some of my time at the police department. We worked with some of the finest men and women in the state. One of the first things we did, when “training” young chaplains, was to remind them that in the face of tragedy, one of the worst things they could do to a struggling family, is walk in with a Bible and say, “Everything happens for a reason.”
We live in a world that isn’t fair. I must remind my daughters of this regularly. Heck, I must remind myself sometimes. The good suffer with the bad. Often, there is no “good guy” riding off into the sunset. There’s a reason, in the "Hail Holy Queen" prayer, that we reference this world when we say we are “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.”
“And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men …”
Perhaps the most adept way I’ve learned to make sense of the often senseless is to change “Everything happens for a reason” into “God can bring reason into everything that happens.” To put it even better, a very wise Basilian priest, who just happens to be my boss, says it this way: “Sometimes God saves us from our suffering. But sometimes God saves us through our suffering.”
I shared a story about my late grandmother with my students pursuant to this subject. I believed she was a saint. Years ago, when I was in college, she contracted cancer. I was confident God was going to heal her. After all, why should someone so good have to suffer? When her cancer lingered, I questioned God’s goodness. I asked a priest friend about it. His answer to me? “Next time you’re over at your grandparents … watch your grandfather.” Watch my grandfather? What did he mean by that?
Reluctantly, I followed his advice. My grandfather, though a good person, had not always shown a plethora of affection during their marriage. Though a good provider, he wasn’t always “present” all the time. Know what I saw? I saw him changing her sheets, driving her to doctor’s appointments, feeding her, giving her the needed medication. In short, I saw in him a transformation that had it not been for her suffering, I may never have seen.
One of my students asked me: “So, God gave her cancer to save him?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” I said. “Or maybe God used her cancer to help save him.” One way makes God the arbiter of the bad. The other, the transformer of it.
As a class, we concluded this redemptive suffering unit by looking at historical images of suffering and death and providing synonyms for each — the guillotine, the electric chair, and multitude of other historical “symbols” of death. The students didn’t disappoint: “Loneliness, Despair, Hopelessness.” The last of those images I showed was a first century Roman cross. Their synonyms? “Love, sacrifice, forgiveness,” they said. Until one of them quipped: “I’ll bet most first century Judeans didn’t think that way before Jesus.” Sometimes these kids are smarter than I give them credit for.
God didn’t create the cross. But nor did he remove it. In only a way that only God can, he transformed it from something horrendous into something redemptive; from something implicitly bad to something explicitly good. Sometimes God does save us from our suffering. But when that doesn’t happen, we must look no further than the ways He’s redeemed others’ suffering throughout history. It may be difficult, even impossible for us to see at times. But He asks only that we have faith enough to wait on Him. Then maybe in the midst of our sorrow, we can “hear the bells” that remind us that though we may suffer, God will find a way to help us win.
“Then hear the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor does He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Paul Stuligross is a retired police officer. He currently teaches theology at Detroit Catholic Central High School in Novi.
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