Shaping the Ripples (3 page)

When I was younger, I’d always said that I’d own a house that overlooked water. I’d had in mind waves breaking on a golden beach, but I suppose a balcony facing the River Ouse is as close as I am going to get. I opened the freezer and looked at my selection of microwaveable meals for one. Taking out a chicken and pasta bake, I glanced at a notice attached by a magnet to the fridge. It was something that I’d picked up at church on one of my infrequent visits, detailing when and where the house groups were. There was one that night, on the subject of “How can there be a God while the innocent suffer?”

I checked my watch. There was just about enough time to eat and get there if I hurried. I considered my options for the evening – another night in trying to find something worth watching on the TV or an evening talking about suffering. In the end, the thought that at least this would count as one of the two evenings out I had promised Jennifer swung it, and I gobbled down my food and got ready to go.

The home groups meet fortnightly at the home of Samuel and Ruth Kondo. I’ve probably been to about three in the last year, but every time I turn up the two of them manage to make me feel that I’ve made their evening by being there. This time, it was Samuel who opened the door. An enormous man, originally from the Sudan, his face broke into a huge smile,

“Jack!” he beamed, crushing my hand inadvertently as he shook it enthusiastically, “Good to see you.”

He moved aside, and let me lead the way down the hall and into their living room. There were already half a dozen people sitting in the various chairs around the room, but Samuel’s wife Ruth jumped out of her chair and came rushing over to give me a hug. The thought briefly passed through my mind that if everyone who called themselves Christians was as loving and welcoming as Samuel and Ruth, churches might suddenly find themselves over-subscribed.

Sat at the far end of the room, in a single armchair, Christopher Upton smiled across at me and then cleared his throat,

“Perhaps we should make a start,” he said.

Christopher has been vicar of St. Thomas’s church for about three years and must be nearly 40. I’m not sure he was everyone’s first choice initially, as people still seem to prefer their vicars to be married, but he’d soon won people over with his obvious sincerity and compassion. When I’d started to look for somewhere to go after Liz and I split up, for some company as much as anything, it had been listening to Christopher preach that had made me feel at home. The house groups were his innovation, and I felt slightly guilty that I didn’t get along more often to support him.

I knew most of the others in the room, but Christopher got us all to introduce ourselves anyway. Besides Samuel and Ruth, there were four other people: Andrew Stanton, young and very intense; Fiona, a formidable lady in her 70’s who was also a lifelong member of the church; and Debbie Muir and Carol Barker, two friends in their early 30’s.

With the introductions over Andrew started, “The problem of suffering is one all Christians have to take seriously. It’s one of the main reasons people give for not believing in God. We must never pretend that it’s not an important question. Just stop for a minute and think of some examples of unfair suffering; from the news or from your own life.”

There was quiet for a time. The images in my head were mostly of people I’d met at the Crisis Centre – women and children with broken bones and battered faces and some of the most extreme cases with their history of torture and rape. The rest of the group looked equally sombre.

When Christopher asked us to share our thoughts, the whole catalogue of human pain and misery was listed. Images of famine and poverty, stories of tragic accidents and wilful cruelty. Each person there had their own personal experiences of pain to share – stories of illness and bereavement, of being helpless as others suffered.

Finally Samuel spoke “Some of you know that Ruth and I come from the Sudan. What most people don’t know is that to be a Christian in the Sudan is to face persecution. We both have family and friends who have been tortured or executed,” his voice went quieter “and I have a sister who went missing almost two years ago. I doubt I’ll ever know what happened to her.”

There was a deep quiet in the room, and then Christopher spoke again.

“So with all this, how can there possibly be a God who loves and cares for us? Why doesn’t he do something?”

Fiona Armstrong suddenly spoke, “St. Paul says that God never lets us suffer more than we can bear.”

I really like Fiona, and I admire her especially for the fact her faith has lasted throughout her life but that she’s still open to new things like the house groups. But I just couldn’t let that last comment go. Speaking as gently as I could, I said,

“I understand that that’s meant as a promise that when we suffer God is there to help, but I’m not sure it answers the problem. It could sound like God is there letting people suffer but only up to a limit he thinks we can stand. That could make it even worse.”

Ruth’s eyes were encouraging “Go on, Jack – explain what you mean.”

“Well for one thing, it isn’t always true – people do suffer more than they can cope sometimes and have a breakdown or even commit suicide. Besides which, if you tell a mother whose child has just been killed that God doesn't let you suffer more that you can bear, isn't what she hears that if she'd been a less strong person, her child would still be alive?”

Fiona looked slightly taken aback, and Christopher tried to smooth things over,

“Yes, you both make important points. Fiona is right in pointing to God’s promise that he will always sustain us if we look to Him when we suffer, but I think we’d agree that that doesn’t solve the problem. Let’s have a look at how the Bible tries to answer the question.”

Over the next half an hour, he took us through the story of Job, which he introduced as a story told in the Bible to try and address the problem of suffering. Job is introduced as the perfect man; holy, generous and moral. As a result he is richly blessed with great wealth and a large and loving family.

Then the story takes a slightly strange turn. In a conversation with God, the devil claims that Job is only so devout because he knows that God will reward him for it. To disprove this, God allows Job to lose everything. His family is killed, he is bankrupted, and he ends up living on the city rubbish tip, his body covered with open, bleeding sores. Then he poses the question – why has God allowed this?

Job’s friends come, and give him the only answer which makes sense to them – it must be because Job deserves it. Although he seemed good, he must really have committed some great sin for which he is now being justly punished. When Job continues to protest his innocence, they get increasingly angry with him. Finally God shows up but, rather than explaining things, poses an endless series of questions to Job, which seem to have the aim of showing Job how little he really knows or understands of the world. Eventually Job says he’s sorry for ever doubting God, and is restored to health and prosperity.

“So,” Christopher concluded, “what do you think the story is trying to tell us?”

Debbie answered slightly hesitantly “Is it that there isn’t an answer – that we can’t understand properly why bad things happen?”

Before Christopher could respond, Andrew Stanton spoke angrily, “What sort of an answer is that? We know why most bad things happen – because people cause them.”

Christopher’s voice had a slightly harder edge when he spoke. “No Andrew, Debbie is right in what she says. Of course it’s true that much suffering is caused by people’s sin, but how do we explain why one individual or family suffers, while another seem to be spared? Debbie’s answer is the only one we have – we don’t know.”

Andrew had always struck me as a very nervous young man, but tonight he seemed especially on edge. He was almost shouting as he replied to Christopher, “But what about the God of wrath! Some people deserve to suffer for what they’ve done!”

“That’s true,” said Christopher more calmly, “and we believe that one day each person will have to stand before God and account for what they’ve done. But the God we know through Jesus and the Bible is one who is quick to understand people’s failings, and quick to forgive.”

Andrew muttered something which sounded rather like “God anoints the pure to punish the wicked”, but fortunately fell silent from then on. Ruth tried to restore some calm, by asking,

“Doesn’t the story of Job say something about there always being hope, no matter what happens, because God is there with you?”

Christopher didn’t answer her though; he was staring down at the floor, his eyes wide and unfocussed. Ruth repeated her question more forcefully, and he suddenly shook his head, as if to dislodge whatever thoughts had taken root there, and looked up at her.

“What? Oh yes,” he replied, his voice becoming stronger “that’s what we were coming onto. Job doesn’t get an answer, but he is able to survive, because he experiences God’s presence.”

The rest of the evening was fairly undramatic in comparison. We moved on to talk about God’s response to evil and suffering, and Jesus’ supreme act of love in suffering and dying for us. Andrew seemed to have shrugged off whatever it was that was troubling him, and even managed a smile near the end at one of Christopher’s awful jokes.

Once the discussion was over, Ruth brought in coffee and biscuits (with water for me). Christopher then invited people to share things they’d like the others to pray about. There were the usual sorts of things – friends going in to hospital and so on – and then Christopher spoke.

“I’d really appreciate you praying for me at the moment,” he said in a voice which seemed to me to be less full of life that usual. “I don’t want to go into details, but things are a bit of a struggle at the moment.”

When the meeting was finished, I thanked the Kondo’s for their hospitality, and got another hug from Ruth in reply. I left the house at the same time as Debbie and Carol who invited me to join them at the local pub. Both were quite unashamed of the fact that as well as enjoying the house group meetings, they were glad to have an excuse to get out of the house for one evening and leave their husbands babysitting – the visit to the pub rounding the night off nicely. I appreciated the offer, but declined and strolled home.

On the way home, I could feel my mood starting to change. It’s a hard thing to explain, but ever since I began to remember the abuse, I find that I have spells where I suddenly feel overwhelmed by sadness and despair. It happened once when I was with Jennifer and she observed that it looked as if I “was being engulfed by darkness”. Slightly dramatic, perhaps, but it wasn’t a bad description.

Opening the door to my flat, the sense of hopelessness was almost unbearable. I left the light-switch untouched, and walked through the living room and sat in the darkness, staring unseeing out of the window and across the river.

On nights like this, I wished I hadn’t made the decision to keep the house free of alcohol. The theory had been that sitting drinking alone each evening would be far too easy a habit to get into; but on the really bad nights I could have done with the option of drinking myself into oblivion.

The thought of oblivion lifted me out of my seat and, feeling powerless to resist the drive that rose from deep inside, I walked into the kitchen. I opened the drawer, and my fingers fastened tightly around the black handle of my carving knife. I turned and returned through the dark living area, to sit back down.

I just sat for some minutes, feeling the weight of the knife and running my finger softly along the sharp blade. Finally I pressed the tip of the knife to my right wrist.
Go on
said the seductive voice in my brain.
Put an end to it now.
The pressure on my wrist increased. At that moment, it felt that it would have been the easiest and most natural thing to press harder and then start carving – and the hardest thing not to. The moment stretched, and then faded.

I got up, and walked back into the kitchen, putting the knife back into the drawer and away out of sight. As always after these moments, I felt empty and slightly ashamed, although I was never sure if this was caused by having seriously contemplated suicide, or by not being actually able to do it.

I knew there was no chance of getting any sleep, so I returned to the living room and turned on the television. Eventually I found a channel which was promising six hours of football from around the world, and another long night began.

Chapter Four

The next morning, I freshened up with a shower and managed a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast. I had dozed a little in my armchair during the night, so I didn’t feel too bad. I’d learned since Liz had left that I could function fairly well on very little sleep, although sometimes it would catch up with me and I’d have to sleep through most of a weekend to recharge.

While putting my jacket on, my fingers touched the stiff edge of a letter in the pocket, and I remembered my promise to Ryan Clarke. I rang Barbara at home to check that both she and Katie were going to be in the office, and arranged that I would be in from lunchtime.

Living in York, it’s fairly easy to get around on foot; so most of the time my car lives in the underground garage which forms part of my apartment block. Linda Clarke had been determined that she needed to get out of the city to stay clear of Ryan, and had started her new life in a little village some eight miles to the south. It gave me a good excuse to take the car out on a rare trip through the local countryside.

I knew that Linda worked in the afternoons as a classroom assistant at the small village school, so I decided to make her my first visit of the day. Hopefully she’d be in, I thought, or I’d just push the letter through the door with a note asking her to give me a call.

I parked my car alongside the village green, and walked up to the stone-built bungalow where Linda was lodging. Ringing the bell, I listened for some signs of life. The lounge curtain, which was still drawn, twitched slightly. After a moment, there was the sound of footsteps, and the door was opened. Linda Clarke stood there, a slightly relieved smile on her face.