Job spoke, saying:
Is not man's life on earth a drudgery?
Are not his days those of hirelings?
He is a slave who longs for the shade,
a hireling who waits for his wages.
So I have been assigned months of misery,
and troubled nights have been allotted to me.
If in bed I say, "When shall I arise?"
then the night drags on;
I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle;
they come to an end without hope.
Remember that my life is like the wind;
I shall not see happiness again. Job 7:1-4, 6-7
Many years ago I was classmates while studying philosophy in graduate school with a now prominent Catholic apologist. One of many ideas he imparted to me in a subtle manner was that of synchronicity. At the time I didn't necessarily see it in the Jungian context of the alignment of universal forces. For me this was too speculative and didn't have the immediacy in world-as-experienced that I sought. Still I sought out my classmate for his take on what I still consider to be a more than curious phenomenon.
The idea of synchronicity has come up several times in my life. First, as an undergraduate while delving deeply into Epictetus' Discourses, I came face to face with all the reasons I thought at the time would lead me to having a stoic outlook on life--the loss of a meaningful relationship, a crippling case of sciatica, unemployment and near starvation. It all seemed to coincide with my opening the pages of the life of a crippled suffering slave who knew Logos--though not in the Johannine sense, but as the philosophical-rational expression of Being. I must admit that at the time I learned to identify more with the suffering of Epictetus than with the principle of universal reason as he expressed it.
However, at the time I accounted my feelings toward my own personal pain and loss to be more a case of youthful melancholy and general discontent- with life as it was-I thought perhaps I brought whatever I was experiencing on myself.
My reading of Epictetus and discussions at the local midnight philosophy club attracted the interest of a street preacher who called himself Brother Timothy. Timothy made himself at home among college students and didn't seem to mind the chain smoking and drinking of an all-night college beer hall. Timothy greeted me with at least a listening ear and after several conversations lasting until daybreak he managed to convince me that the answer to Epictetus's sufferings, and those I perceived, were to be found in Jesus Christ. I believe I wholeheartedly accepted what Timothy offered, though he simply planted the idea and then disappeared not to be seen again after a few months.
It was years later after I had become Catholic and was doing graduate work that the idea of synchronicity came up with the soon-to-be-apologist classmate. At the time I still had my copy of Epictetus' Discourses, but I refused to open it due to my not so far off memory of a very real pain. Fortunately the pain stayed away, as did an new events of cosmic synchronicity. Honestly, and on the contrary, what I experienced in the years that followed was an unfolding of redemption and joy. Although suffering has come my way more than once, it has had no universal hold on me.
I come back to my thoughts on Epictetus because the reading this weekend from Job reminded me of them, and it reminded me of a time in my life when I had a great need. Also, in a sense, one might say there is a kind of synchronicity in Job, but in the sense that he points us to the answer rather than coinciding with loss.
When a real struggle comes my way now I no longer consider that I should simply face it as a cosmic requirement to be stoic, rather I sense that I should look to Job as an archetype of suffering. Not so to say that everything is pointless or meaningless, or that the adversary is getting his way in prosecuting my soul in a cosmic court, but that redemption is sure to come--that justice awaits, and that in the end good will triumph.
Nothing happens in the entire universe that escapes the glance of God. I've been taught to believe, and I still do believe, that our actions reverberate in the world of our lives and they indeed return to us. Good returns to the good and evil returns to the evil--even more in an eternal sense. Thus the good that Job did returned to him in that God gave us Jesus, in whom we have hope.
We may struggle time and again with what appears to be meaningless suffering. There are sure to be injustices, pain, suffering, loss--it happens to everyone, but for those who have faith there is an answer. It is the answer that Job required, and that which the Father gave us on a Friday afternoon.
A great post - and with today being World day of the Sick I welcome very much what you say about suffering. We can only hope and pray for those who suffer and do not yet know Jesus, that somehow or other he will be welcomed into their lives and they will find in Him the answer you speak of, and they are searching for.
Posted by: Ann | February 11, 2009 at 02:49 PM
Amen, and amen.
Posted by: C | February 12, 2009 at 05:06 PM
"I am the man who has known affliction under the rod of the wrath of the Lord.
It was I whom he led away and left to walk in darkness, where no light is.
Against me alone he has turned his hand, and so it is all day long."
Lamentations chapter 3
Posted by: Kevin Brocker | February 15, 2009 at 12:34 AM
"I am the man who has known affliction under the rod of the wrath of the Lord.
It was I whom he led away and left to walk in darkness, where no light is.
Against me alone he has turned his hand, and so it is all day long."
Lamentations chapter 3
Posted by: Kevin Brocker | February 15, 2009 at 12:35 AM