The past couple of days I've been reflecting on Jesus' remark to his critics: "But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God is here" (Lk 11:20). I keep picturing Michelangelo's painting of the Creation of man in the Sistine chapel, in which God is reaching out his finger to instill life into Adam. Well, a few minutes ago the Lord put this very picture in front of me; it seems that it is part of a post that somehow never got published but was accidentally left as a draft. So I'm taking the hint and publishing it below.

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I heard a woman writer being interviewed this week on NPR, concerning a book she had written about atheism and atheists. She came across as very reasonable and calm and rational as she explained that many people who wind up rejecting the idea of God do so after the death of a loved one.

She began speaking for these people but soon seemed to be speaking for herself as well,

offering this observation: “Believers will say that despite all the horrible suffering in the world, God has this Grand Plan for the world, but we’re unable to see it.” She went on, “This is such a weak argument, to refer everything to some divine Grand Plan. Anyone could write a better plan than the alleged present one that includes the senseless suffering of babies and the horrible destructive power of hurricanes. Even you or I could write a better plan than that! The idea of a Divine Plan just doesn’t work because it’s so obviously a bad plan.”  

Because of her reasonable and sincere tone of voice, I kept listening to her for a while longer. While there was nothing new in what she was saying, it made me conscious of what a gift my faith is: you can’t reason your way to a Divine Plan that’s behind the present world with its mysterious suffering and evils of all kinds. The writer is correct on that score: from the point of view of reason, this is indeed an inexplicably nasty world much of the time, one that makes no sense, it is indeed absurd. Yet here I am believing confidently that this absurd world is not all there is.

Then this morning I was reflecting on the first reading of today’s mass, the hymn about Christ in Colossians Ch. 1:15-20, which begins “He is the image of the invisible God.” There’s your leap of faith, right? You can’t truly reason your way to an encounter with an invisible God. But the line that really caught my attention is a couple of verses later in Col. 1:17:  “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” “All things hold together?” Hmm..., I don’t know about that! Looking at the morning headlines one would rather conclude that the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe was closer to the truth about our world with his book title, “Things Fall Apart.” As I reflected on the image of Christ “holding everything together” I remembered that writer from the radio interview, and I thought, “Well, if Christ isn’t doing such a great job holding the world together, what’s the alternative?” I’m not sure she had answered that question with her idea that your or I could easily write a much better script for running the world. Then a thought jumped out at me. Yikes! Writing my own story? That’s exactly where I get

myself in trouble, isn’t it? I reject the Gospel script centered on Christ's self-sacrificing love, and start writing my own, presumably “better” version of my story. My version avoids, say, the inconvenience of helping a needy neighbor, or the accepting of consequences of my own actions. So my improved story starts to include self-centeredness and lying. Now, so far, I have to admit that this does not really sound like much of an improvement over God’s Grand Plan with its infant deaths and killer hurricanes. I humbly admit that, as much as I may dislike the present mysterious Plan, I really cannot offer a better one. How about you? So, in the absence of a better story, I embrace the one we’ve been given, and call it “my story,” and turn it into “my song.” Frances J. Crosby did just that with her beautiful hymn,

"Blessed Assurance."

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain:

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long;

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,

Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;

Angels, descending, bring from above

Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,

I in my Savior am happy and blest,

Watching and waiting, looking above,

Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

I keep praying for that good woman I heard on the radio, imagining her delighted surprise when she dies and wakes up to behold the Great Plan in its fulness in heaven!