Giving Thanks Amidst the Rubble

Years ago, I played the role of Sarah (the wife) in  “JB,” a play  based on the Biblical book of Job, written (in verse) by Archibald McLeish.  In this play, as in many other works of literature , those who suffer the unimaginable and senseless tragedies of life question the goodness and/or existence of God.  One of the characters (Nickles) says:  “I heard upon his dry dung heap/that man cry out who cannot sleep:/ “If God is God He is not good,/ If God is good He is not God…”  JB (Job) wishes he had never been born.  Sarah encourages him to curse God and die.

As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, I am struck by the difficult, tragic and painful circumstances of so many people here and around the world.  Some of my friends have lost loved ones to senseless accidents; mothers and fathers mourn sons and daughters lost to warfare; hundreds of thousands are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives after Hurricane Sandy; and countless others struggle with financial, emotional or physical difficulties.  In the midst of these times, Paul’s exhortation to “give thanks in all circumstances” seems almost cruel, and faith (at best) a challenge.

Perhaps in such times, we can only give thanks that God IS.  Though we struggle to give thanks for our circumstances, we can be grateful that there is One to whom we can cry out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”  Even with that, often we must (like Christ) experience additional grief and endure the long darkness of the tomb before we begin to see the first rays of Easter morning.

Near the end of JB, Sarah has left JB and her home, turning her back on God and faith.  But as in scripture, she eventually returns.  Here she tells JB about  her journey out into hopeless doubt and back again:  “Among the ashes./All there is now of the town is ashes./Mountains of ashes.  Shattered glass./Glittering cliffs of glass all shattered/Steeper than a cat could climb/if there were cats still…/And the pigeons –/They wheel and settle and whirl off/Wheeling and almost settling…/and the silence–/There is no sound there now — no wind sound–/Nothing that could sound the wind–/Could make it sing — no door — no doorway…/only this  [she holds a budding forsythia twig in her hands]  Among the ashes!/I found it growing in the ashes,/Gold, as though it did not know….”

If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.

– Meister Eckhart