The Christian vision is one in which suffering is real and terrible but not, ultimately, the deepest element of our lives. Our hope is that there’s a goodness and love more enduring than our trials and tribulations that, paradoxically, suffering actually can reveal. This is not to claim Gravity is a “Christian” film – indeed, Milhalfy notices that both Christian and Buddhist imagery figures in the movie. Instead, it seems that spiritual resources – something like prayer, especially – allow Ryan Stone to endure suffering, and to cultivate gratitude for her life despite such suffering. I’m far more interested in how that actually happens, how faith and spirituality can connect with the suffering person to allow them to move forward and live, than I am in debating the theodicy problem with atheists whose view of God is as crude as the fundamentalists they so frequently deride.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
A Sunday Thought on Suffering
Matthew Sitman ponders the meaning of suffering as revealed in the film "Gravity" on The Daily Dish.
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As a transplant survivor who suffered for many years before receiving the gift of life, I find it is not in the suffering but looking back on what helped me survive through it all which has strenthened my faith. For I realize that in those fleeting times when I was nearing death that God's comforting hand reached out to me, giving me hope and the will to go on.
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