Lumen Fidei #22: Why Does God Allow Suffering?

From #57: To those who suffer, God does not provide arguments which explain everything; rather, his response is that of an accompanying presence, a history of goodness which touches every story of suffering and opens up a ray of light.

In my time as a nursing assistant and later as a chaplain intern, I was asked many times why is there suffering. It came up in many of my classes. I even had one class that dedicated a semester completely do that question in college.

The best I can say is that no one answer is going to work for every person in every situation. If someone who is suffering asks you "Why?" there is no answer you can give that will help them. The best you can do is, if appropriate, help them find an answer themselves and listen to them.

One thing I appreciate about Christianity is that it offers something more than an answer. It offers a God who knows all about suffering and who cares about each and every one of us deeply. Jesus Christ died abandoned by his friends in one of the most horrifying ways imaginable (likely asphyxiation). During his life, he suffered all the pains we do. Friends of his died, notably Lazarus. He lived far from home as he traveled preaching. He felt hunger, he felt thirst, and I'm sure he felt all the other aches and pains that we do.

So when we come to him in our suffering, he understands us intimately. He's been there. He might not be able to tell us why we are suffering, but he can be present to us in our suffering.

This is the last installment in a series of posts reflecting on quotes from Pope Francis' first encyclical. It's been fun and given my background, I think it's very appropriate that we ended with a post about the meaning of suffering. If you want to read more, visit here.

Music Soothes the Baby's Soul

When I saw this article the other day, I wasn't that terribly surprised. James seemed to like music well before he was born. Even now, especially in the car, he'll get upset if there isn't some kind of music playing.

Picture from the article because that baby is too cute.

The article mentions two benefits to the music that I think are worth noting.

1. Music reminds the baby of the womb. Before he or she was born, all sounds were muted and blurry. It was like listening underwater. Music and some nature sounds (like whales) is the closest we can come to imitating those sounds. And I wonder how long this memory lasts. I know of adults that prefer to sleep in a dark room with music playing softly. It's food for thought.
2. It is used as a bonding experience for the parent and child. The parent, seeing such a small person hooked up to all sorts of machines and monitors, is understandably nervous about touching their own child. Then they feel bad about it, because they're not touching their own child. This gives parents a chance to relieve that tension by giving them a chance to comfort their child without touch.

For the Christian parent, this can take on an added dimension. As St Augustine wrote, "He who sings prays twice." We are told in Scripture to,

And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another [in] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.- Ephesians 5:18-20

Being born so early and living to see another day, the parents already have plenty to sing about, "Sing praise to him, play music; proclaim all his wondrous deeds!" (Psalm 105:2) And the child doesn't care what you sound like, they only care to hear mom and dad's voices because those were the sounds they heard the most in the womb.

So this study shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but it should be a reminder to everyone of the importance of music in the baby's life.

Note to reader: Sorry I haven't written much lately. My internship has really heated up and I was finishing work on a website I'm helping start. The website is called YOUCATholic.com and as the name suggests, it is using the YOUCAT to teach the faith. It should be going on line today and I encourage you to check it out.

10-Year-Old Needs Lung

In Philadelphia, there is a 10-year-old girl who has been waiting for 18 months for a lung due to some regulations in regards to the donor list. She will die soon if she does not get a transplant.

To quote the entire article (it isn't really long):

A Philadelphia-area family's fight over the rules that govern lung transplants is getting national attention.

Ten-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, of Newtown Square, is dying of cystic fibrosis at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

She needs a lung transplant to survive, but Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network policies say children under age 12 should receive lungs from another child, not an adult. That means it will take longer for lungs to be available to Sarah, who has been on the transplant list for 18 months.

The case has garnered attention in the Philadelphia region and across the country, and spurred discussion about the lung-transplant regulations.

Her family has started a petition on Change.org, asking supporters to urge the Department of Health and Human Services to change the regulations.

"This policy needs to change," the petition says. "The OPTN/UNOS Lung Review Board, a national group of transplant physicians and surgeons, can make an exceptional ruling for Sarah. And they can recommend new policies to OPTN."

As of this morning, more than 72,000 people had signed the petition. The OPTN said in a statement this week it can't change its rules based on one patient.

National news outlets from CNN to Fox News have picked up on the story, and some doctors not involved in Sarah's case say the policy should change.

Dr. Devang Doshi, a pediatric lung specialist at Beaumont Children's Hospital in Michigan, told ABC News that such "hurdles and obstacles" lead him to "get frustrated with the system."

He said: "It's a very disheartening thing to hear and read about because you've got a child in desperate need of a transplant to survive ... and people less qualified in terms of severity are able to get that organ instead of this child because of what's in place."

Art Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University's Langone Medical Center, told the television station that children should be given priority over adults, because kids can have more healthy years with the new lungs.

Caplan elaborated to NBC News that children should get priority in part because many adult transplant patients need new lungs because of their own actions, like smoking, while children are "non-culpable." 

"I think we should go back and revisit the system and I think we should give more weight to kids," Caplan told NBC.

Sarah's family has said she has only a few weeks to live and needs a ventilator to breathe.

I'm in complete agreement that the guidelines need to be revisited. They seem awfully unfair to children in need of lungs. There are simply not many children donors. Some parents who lose children see donating the body as an honorable thing so that other parents don't have to experience the same loss. But, other parents see it very differently. Their child had been taken from them and they can't bear the thought of their child being cut up. Both of these ideas are natural. Neither set of parents should feel ashamed of their feelings.

On the other hand, while I think "need" is a good qualifier, I think that "age" and "personal culpability" could be a slippery slope. So, is a 40-year-old life worth less than a 10-year-old life simply due to age? Is a skinny person more valuable than a fat person simply because they don't overeat? Yes, age and culpability can and should be considered as factors, but they can't be the final deal-maker or breaker. A skinny, young life is not by default more valuable than a fat, old life.

Life is life and God loves us all. Each and every life has unimaginable dignity and value. I don't envy the people who have to make these decisions about organ transplants. Their job must be horrible.

Sick kids shouldn't die because parents don't want to donate their dead kid's organs. From what I've seen, there is no reason why she can't get an adult lung. At the very least, I'd think an adult lung would be better than no lung at all. If she's within weeks of death's door, by all means, change the regulations and get her a lung now.

Sign the petition here: http://www.change.org/savesarah

Update
Update again

I've Graduated!!!!

In January 2008, I went straight to grad school after graduating college. Due to numerous financial and personal issues, I dropped out, moved back home and worked full-time for two years.

I went back in September 2010. I went to school full-time while working part-time, volunteering for three different organizations, and sorta, kinda "planning" a wedding (my roommate actually did a lot of that job for me).

Got married in July 2011, moved half-way across the country, and had an unexpected baby. Thanks to the patience of the staff at Aquinas Institute and Rev. Terry Culbertson at Upstate University Hospital, I was able to complete the 5 remaining courses to finish my degree.

I technically graduated in December 2012, but I got to walk this past Friday. It is the end of a very long journey. As a woman I met Saturday said, "You really wanted this."

The Old Order Has Passed Away: Reflection of the Fifth Sunday of Easter

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away. -Revelation 21:4

A major component of my internship with Spiritual Care at the hospital was to have some kind of ritual to "enter in with the patient and their family." I had a hard time coming up with one. For one thing, I was in the ER so sometimes I didn't really have much time between visits and I definitely had no privacy to have a ritual. For another, except for things like the Rosary, I really didn't have a prayer life. The Rosary, even just a decade, was too long for a pre-pastoral visit ritual. Usually, I was lucky just to remind myself of the patient's name and what their presenting condition was.

About halfway through the semester, after being asked a half dozen times to get a ritual, I settled upon memorizing Bible passages. Every evening I'd pack an index card on which I'd have a passage written and between visits I'd work on memorization. This quote from Revelation, found in the second reading this week, was one of the quotes I used.

Source

Someday all of this is going to end. The mother mourning her dead child will hold that child again in God's kingdom. The person with the debilitating, fatal illness will finally feel healthy and whole again. The person born with a severe mental disability will be able to sit down and chat with you. Whatever is bothering you will finally be resolved.

While I wouldn't necessarily share this quote in a pastoral visit, it does give me comfort when I see so much suffering in the world. The person you're visiting might not be able to see that far into the future. Caught up in their pain, they just want their lives to go back to normal now. They don't care about some future world, they want relief now. I think we've all been there. As a part of the staff, I have more of an outsider view. From the outside, it's easier to take the longer view. It's easier to remember as I'm driving home that this is not forever.

This too shall end.

The old order. The society in which disease runs rampant. In which people go broke paying medical bills. In which uninsured can't get care until it's too late. In which car accidents happen. In which people shoot one another. This old order will pass away. Then God Himself will wipe the tears from all of our eyes and we will no longer suffer.

And in the meantime, we got cat pictures!

How Getting Sick Again Helped Me Heal from My C-section

This month has been harder for me than I thought it would be. My son's first birthday is coming up and all of the depression from his birth is bubbling up fresh. So, this week I will share two parts of my healing process. For background info, you can look at my first Ignitum Today article here.

Source

Even a routine surgery makes one think about death. Two months after James was born, I was scheduled to have surgery once again. This time it was my gallbladder. As I was growing up, both of my parents had to have theirs removed. My mom had hers removed shortly after my brother was born. My dad's was removed in an emergency as he had waited to the last minute to go to the hospital and his gallstones snowballed into much more serious problems. So, when I had my first attack while I was in the third trimester of my pregnancy, my family knew exactly what it was. Some people will have one attack and never have troubles again. I waited for a second attack before I did anything. When that second attack came, I found a doctor, I walked into the office, and I requested to have the thing removed. Within a month, I was on the operating table again.

The thing that bugged me most this time was going under general anesthesia. But I did my research and asked my questions and what it boiled down to is: the gallbladder is too close to the diaphragm. Local anesthesia would be more dangerous than general simply because of the gallbladder's location.

So, okay...I endured a month of eating like I was vegan again. I was blessed by the fact I had been vegan before so I knew all the tricks. I just used this as an excuse to buy all that really expensive but really good vegan food that I wouldn't be able to talk my husband into buying normally.  

Aww yeah! This is where this pic comes from, but there is some awesome expensive food on this table. Cuties are da bomb! 

But, back to death: I made sure I got to confession before the surgery. I said my prayers. And as I stared at the ceiling at 3 in the morning hyperventilating thinking about going to surgery again, I thought about my priorities.

What if I did die on the table? I had met patients in the hospital who had issues with the most basic of surgeries. I had even met someone who had a heart attack during a gallbladder removal surgery. What if that was me? What if I were living in my last days?

The first thing that struck me was a flood of overwhelming love for my husband and my son. Here I was in bed, my son laying on top of me (because he wouldn't sleep in his own bed...again) and my husband beside me. All I could think about was how much I was completely and madly in love with them both. I would do anything for them. They were (and are) my world.

I imagined myself in bed in a nursing home surrounded by family. I saw how James would look and I imagined his future brothers. What would matter to me then? That my eldest wasn't born the natural way? That I felt as if I had adopted my eldest son, as if he wasn't of my flesh? No, all that would matter to me was that he is my son. That all these grown men were my sons.* I would be going to meet our Maker and spend time with Him waiting for all my boys to arrive.

In the end, not even this writing would mean much to me. I have always wanted to be a writer and I'm still working on building a career, but what is a job? You can't take it with you. What would matter to me would be family and God. And maybe that order isn't right. We are told God should come before family (Luke 14:26). Hopefully I have a nice long life ahead of me to figure that out.

I came out of that surgery with a new appreciation for what I went through when James was born. Yes, it sucked. It still sucks a year later. I thinking about it right now makes my scar hurt. But in the end, it really isn't going to matter. When I'm dying, a lot of this stuff in life isn't going to matter.   

*Given my husband's family, I really, really doubt there will be any girls.  

Parents as Ministers

One of the most horrifying things I've seen as a chaplain intern is a mother curled up in bed holding her dead teenage daughter. I've seen a half-dozen families with babies in the ER. Recently, I had to minister to the parents of a severely injured young child. I have to say that rarely does a weekend go by that the first thing I do when I got home is not hold my infant son.

So, what is a parent to do in my situation? Is it a detriment to my ministry if I see my boy in the face of every pediatric patient? Is it bad for me to sympathize with all parents, especially mothers? Do I risk putting families above all other patients in my priorities? Do I risk not being able to see clearly due to my own biases? Here are a few of my thoughts on the situation:

How to treat parents

As part of my internship, I had bi-weekly supervisory meetings with the head of the Spiritual Care Dept. Once, we reflected on my work with the family of the aforementioned severely injured child. I admitted to my supervisor that as I went to meet with the family, I tried to put myself in their shoes. I thought, "What would I be thinking or feeling if I were them? What would be most helpful for me if I were them? What would be least helpful?"

I think that last question is the most important one for a parent/minister to ask. Every person and every situation is different. The parents of this patient have their own stories and backgrounds. You can't use your worldview to judge theirs. There may be emotions felt and expressed that you may never know or imagine. They may need something that you'd never think of. But, at the end of the day, we're all human and while you can't use yourself as a gauge on what to do, you can usually use yourself as a gauge for what not to do. Although there are some people who are more sensitive than others, generally speaking we're all offended and hurt by the same kind of things.

For example: Some people are huggers, some people are not, but most people would agree that laughing while someone else is crying is extremely insensitive. 

Yeah, jerk!

Now is not the time or the place to swap dirty diaper stories or to talk about your own children and parenting adventures. The topic at hand is the sick child and the goal is to help the parents in any way you can, period.


How does being a parent affect my priorities

Clearly, you cannot put parents first, above all of the other people vying for your time and attention. You will want to and it's only natural to want to. As a parent/minister, you can most sympathize with the parents and you have deep concern for any and all sick children. But that doesn't mean that you shirk your responsibilities to the rest of the hospital.

Yup, ALL of these people AND their patients AND their patient's families AND their patient's friends. That is A LOT of people.

Priorities need to be set regardless of how well you can relate to the patient and family. My priorities tend to be set as follows:

1) Those who clearly need spiritual assistance come first. (i.e. those who directly request a chaplain)
2) Life threatening injuries and illnesses
3) Provocative cases (for example, suicidal patients or cases in which there is more than one patient from the same family)
4) Everybody else

Notice that my priorities say nothing about the age of the patient (although the age of the patient could be a factor in any of these) nor does it say anything about the religious affiliation or lack thereof of the patient. Most of my patients are not religiously affiliated. I think that might be a product of the overall culture (more and more people are calling themselves "spiritual, but not religious" for a number of different reasons).

Being able to see clearly

I have to admit that when I see a child injured or sick, I am taken back. But the trick for me is to not let that paralyze me from doing my job. For some reason, in our culture, we find it hard to believe that young people can get injured or sick. We associate youth with health. Regardless if you are a parent or not, seeing a child unconscious on a hospital bed does lead to some cognitive dissonance. When you are a parent, there is an added layer of seeing your own kid in the face of the kid who is hospitalized. It's natural. It's okay to see your kid in the sick kid and to have some of that parental instinct come up. Of course it's going to happen because being a parent changes everything!

You can't let it get in the way of your work though. You have to funnel it to give you energy to help the family, not to start crying yourself in the waiting room. You don't need to make everyone else's job harder by being the chaplain who can't keep their stuff together. The patients don't need that and you're just making yourself look unprofessional. At the end of the day, by all means, cry! You need to get it all out but, don't do it in the moment in front of the family.

Seeing your work through the eyes of a parent can also be a blessing. Your identity as a parent gives you just one more thing in common with our Father in heaven: You know what unconditional love feels like. You know how much God loves every single person in that hospital. So, your identity gives new meaning to your work as you know part of your job as God's representative is to reflect that love to everyone. "What am I to do?" you ask. You are to do what you think God-who-is-Love would do.

And I think that is what it all boils down to. Of course your identity as a parent is going to affect how you minister. You can't stifle all of that nor would you want to. But you can't let it get in the way of your job. Your job at the moment is to care for all patients and their families. But, again, being a parent kind of gives you an inside track into understanding the mind of God. As it says:

Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. - Isaiah 49:15

God loves everyone more than you love your own child. Doesn't that blow your mind?