The Archbishop's words are well worth pondering...
Archbishop speaks in House of Lords... not only for what he says but for the manner of his speaking.
Someone blogged elsewhere a helpful reference to David Ford's excellent book 'Christian Wisdom'. One of the things that Ford there points out is that Job's comforters represent God as being judgemental (p 103). But in fact for much of the book God is "powerfully interrogative. In the Prologue his first to statements are questions, and his whirlwind speeches are pervasively interrogative without much hint of answers or directions.. Both history and creation generate more questions than answers. But they also generate cries and despairs."
Much of Ford's book is a reflection on the cries and despairs of scripture, not least in the experience and life of Christ. In the context of Job he points out how God's response in the whirlwind to Job's desire for annihilation is to evoke and revel in the limitless possibilities of all creation (p109). This is not a cheap comfort. Ford writes: It is as if an almost unthinkable hope can only be suggested by a delicate opening up if the imagination through reworking the very images that had earlier powerfully expressed despair."
A brief summary can do nothing like justice to Ford's wonderful book; the danger is that these brief quotes will misrepresent his subtle and nuanced writing. The best think is to read it as a whole.
And I can't help but think that our Archbishop has read it and has sought to apply it's thinking in his response in the Lord's.
Tomorrow I am speaking on Matthew 15:21-28 (the Canaanite Woman's Faith). I think that at the heart here is Jesus raising a question (for the benefit of his disciples). A move is made from 'stigmatising' the woman as being an outsider to someone who is welcomed. The danger at the moment (eg BBC Question Time) is to come up with quick solutions that stigmatise and judge. This all too easily fails to listen to the cries of despair and offers easy answers.
When I have faced bereavement, 'comfort' comes as the grief does its work. I rarely find solution in intellectual answers but rather in a deep-wrought change which means that old answers and problems are seen in a new light. We too need to let grief do its work. Thank you Rowan for your lead.
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