Of Burning Bushes, Places And Time

There are no atheists in a foxhole, the saying goes.

Of course, there are all kinds of foxholes in life. One needn’t be a soldier to seek out a place where we can retreat into and hope (and pray!) for all the comforts and security we desperately seek when things start going awry.

It is also true that when we are most vulnerable, we are also most aware of the sufferings of others. Every singular tragedy is another link in the chain of almost unbearable pain and senseless loss from which each and every one of us will experience. There is no escape from that truth and there is no avoiding those realities.

Every single moment of every single day, somewhere in this world, many are enduring the most profound pain, sense of loss or feeling of hopelessness. How do respond to that suffering? How can we make sense of the suffering of those forgotten souls of the past?

Why do bad things happen to good people? That question is forever repeated because it is a timeless question. When faced with the tragedies we all must endure, for a few moments we share a collective memory of loss, of the pain of loss from all deaths, from the onset of time. First, we think back to grandparents, great grandparents and all the forgotten generations that preceded them. Then we realize, in our own humility, the devastations that loss and tragedy have had on all mankind.

It is usually at that point that we cry out to God. We ask that He show Himself. We ask that He comfort us and we ask that He not abandon us.

Of course, we never make those requests when things are going well. Often, we regard our most fulfilling awareness and ‘intimate’ exchanges with God as a result of seeing great beauty and natural wonder. That of course, makes ‘seeing’ God a very easy proposition.

The Old Testament story of Moses and the burning bush is instructive.

Moses does not see God in natural setting of beauty or glory, but rather, in a little scrub brush- hardly inspiring. Scripture notes that Moses ‘hid his face‘ from God. Moses saw God’s glory in the lowly burning bush and was aware of His Majesty. God does not hide His presence.

God says to Moses,

“I have indeed seen the suffering of My people…I have heard how they cry out”

God’s exchange with Moses takes place in a burning thorn-bush because God heard and knew the suffering of His people. God did not appear to Moses in a lush forest or other place of natural beauty, because God wanted Moses to understand that He not only knew the suffering, but heard, felt and shared that suffering as well.

It is easy to see the beauty of our spouses, children and loved ones when they are healthy, charming and well dressed. It is not always so easy to see their beauty and uniqueness when that is not the case.

It is also true that sometimes, a person’s real inner beauty and strength are revealed when they face adversity. There are mothers and fathers that marvel at a child’s strength through a debilitating illness. What parent has not secretly proposed to God that they, and not their child, be stricken or afflicted? What parent has not agonized over the trials and tribulations that each child must endure at each and every stage of their lives?

There are husbands who see their wives in a way they had not understood, as those women fight cancers that are unique to their gender and impact how they see themselves as women. Those men come to see a beauty and dignity they had never known and marvel in a stricken spouse’s concern for them and their family. There are wives who have heard grown men, weakened by pain and despair, often in inarticulate and fumbling words that are nothing less than the sweetest poetry, profess their love and appreciation for the wives and family that have nurtured them.

It is at those times we see the real beauty of those who we love and those who love us. It is at those times that we come to understand the kind of love that is real commitment and loyalty.

God no more abandons us in our pain anymore than we abandon our loved ones in their pain and suffering.

Pain, fear and suffering are all a part of what it means to be a part of God’s creation.

First, we learn the easy lessons. To find God in nature, and beauty and music requires only minimal insight. As we progress through life, we learn to see God in the challenges and heartbreak that we all experience. That requires a more sophisticated set of skills. Finally, we learn to see God through loss and pain and suffering. That requires yet another set of skills- and that also requires the kind of humility learned from lessons of life.

In our times of pain, suffering and loss, God is not abandoning us. In fact, He is closer to us than ever, because pain and loss are the other side of the Creation coin. In the same way God oversaw Creation, He oversees loss.

We cannot claim to know God until we have experienced real fear, pain, loss and suffering. We cannot claim to be secure in our faith until the strength of that faith is tested and reaffirmed. We cannot claim to know God until we are comfortable in knowing that we are not all knowing.

We do not need to cry out to God when we are in pain or when we are suffering. God is already there, wanting us to grow into our fullest potential as Creation intended. In the same way that marriage, children and family expand our definitions and understanding of love, so too does pain, suffering and loss expand our definitions and understanding of life, meaning and purpose.

It also true that expanding our definitions and understanding of life does not mean we will fully come to understand God. We are human, with limitations. We are not always meant to understand the Godly ‘why’s ‘ of all pain, suffering, tragedies and even great loss. Sometimes we are meant only to cry, to hurt and suffer despair. Sometimes, those are the lessons that we must learn- and how to make the most of life for ourselves and to be an example to others. While we were ‘Created in God’s Image,‘ we were never meant to be equal to God. That is why Moses ‘hid his face’- there were other, more important lessons in his exchange with God. He had to be that Moses, the human being, that God wanted him to be. It was the humility of Moses at the burning bush that became evident later on- ‘I am the servant of God, not the equal of God.’ It never occurred to Moses to be anything but the servant.

Each of us, at one time or another, is faced with our own ‘burning bush,’ that place not of profound beauty, but rather that place and time where fear, pain, suffering and the promise of God’s enduring love and commitment to us, converge. It is also true that to cry out to God is to cry out for peace, meaning and purpose.

Lord, hear our prayer.