If “well-read” means “not missing anything,” then nobody has a chance. If “well-read” means “making a genuine effort to explore thoughtfully,” then yes, we can all be well-read. But what we’ve seen is always going to be a very small cup dipped out of a very big ocean, and turning your back on the ocean to stare into the cup can’t change that.

–Holmes, L. (2012). The sad beautiful fact that we’re all going to miss almost everything.

I like this response by Louis Peitzman from the Huffington Post.

And just because a small percentage of people have been able to rise above their circumstances because of hard work/education/etc. does NOT mean it’s possible for everyone.

–Hunter, T.W. in “Putting an Antebellum Myth to Rest”

(source)

–John Stott

–Walter Miller, as cited in Lamin Sanneh’s Disciples of All Nations (p. 182)

Martin Luther famously distinguished between a “theology of glory” and a “theology of the cross.” In the former you find yourself substituting a crown of thorns and a body of nailed flesh for a more palatable scene. But with a “theologia crucis,” you can call a spade a spade. You can look grief and loss in the face and identify them for what they are. There’s room — maybe even a literal room that you set aside in a basement — for rage and sobbing and protest and fear and horror.

The great English-American poet W. H. Auden once heard a lecture in which, as Edward Mendelson recounts the scene, the speaker said that, “Jesus and Buddha were the same in effect: they were both attacked by spears, but in the Buddha’s case, the spears turned into flowers.” Auden bristled at this, shouting from the back of the lecture hall, “ON GOOD FRIDAY THE SPEARS WERE REAL.” If those spears were real, we can admit the spears we’ve felt are real, too. There’s no need to pretend we’re smelling roses when all we feel is metal piercing skin. Good Friday enables us to name the pain and face it.

-Wesley Hill (via)

One of my favorite moments in Star Trek is when Captain Kirk looks over the cosmos and says, ‘Somewhere out there someone is saying the three most beautiful words in any language.’ Of course your heart sinks and you think it’s going to be, ‘I love you’ or whatever. He says, ‘Please help me.’ What a philosophically fantastic idea, that vulnerability and need is a beautiful thing.

–Hugh Laurie (via)

According to Mark McMinn’s essay A Psychology of Sin and a Sin of Psychology, personal sin is sin that is committed of our own volition and agency, and original sin is the general brokenness that affects human nature and the world.  Because of original sin, the world is less than it was created to be.  As I read this essay for class, I was reminded of two mistaken assumptions about sin that I habitually make.

First, when it comes to disorder or tragedy, I have a tendency to play the blame game: X happened because of Y’s sin or disobedience.  But evidence from the Bible suggests that original sin wreaks havoc on the order of the world, which inevitably affects our daily lives in more or less conspicuous ways.  In the story of Jesus’ healing of the man born blind, the disciples are eager to play the blame game.  They want to know the cause for the man’s physical disability.  If they can attribute the brokenness of the man’s vision to his or his parents’ sin, then they can discriminate against the man while feeling smug about their own apparent righteousness.  However, Jesus responds by focusing not on the sin, but on the powerful work of God in the life of the blind man.

Next, my typical response to tragedy or disorder is to assert that God ultimately uses all things—including tsunamis, earthquakes, mental illnesses, cancers, and deaths—for his glory.  I sincerely believe that God can and does use tragedy to work out His redemption story.  However, when I quickly quote Romans 8:28* as a refutation of the true badness of the problems of the world, I am attempting, in vain, to ignore the pain and suffering that obviously exists.  My words become hollow, and I empty the verse of its meaning.

So what is a better response to the sin and brokenness of this world?  How does our understanding of original sin and personal sin change the way we approach mental illness?  How do we balance the seemingly contradictory ideas that (1) God uses tragedy for good, and (2) God grieves brokenness and sin to an extent that we are not even capable of understanding?

As a Christian, the first thing I can do is hope.  If God can use deicide to facilitate the salvation of humankind, then surely he can use illness, disasters, and our tears in his redemption story.  Second, as a Christian who is aware of God’s original intentions for this world, I need to act.  Instead of pointing fingers or theorizing abstractly, I need to alleviate suffering, restore goodness, and heal communities through the gifts and relationships God has granted me.

I once heard a pastor explain how the cross saves us from sin in our past, present, and future.  In the past the cross saved us from the penalty of our sins, in the present we are being saved from the power of sin, and one day we will be saved from the very presence of sin.  This understanding of sin and salvation gives me bold humility in my work as a clinician.  I am humbled because it is not my knowledge, but God’s wisdom, that leads to true healing. However, I am bold because I know that there will be a day when all is made right with the world.  I look forward to the day when I will behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.**

“I think the fear of God failing us leads us to ‘cover for God.’  This means we ask for less, expect less, and are satisfied with less because we are afraid to ask for or expect more.“

-Chan, F. (2009) Forgotten God.  Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook.