Situation Earth
I brought up the subject of suffering with God again today. I’ve established in previous conversations that the amount of suffering one endures in their life has nothing to do with whether or not they get into Heaven. This led me to wonder why a loving compassionate God would allow suffering to exist at all in the world. Now I didn’t want to just come out to God and say he was a mean old man right to his face so I struggled for a kinder, gentler way to make my inquiry.
But I didn’t really find one.
The best I could come up with… I asked, “Why don’t you wipe out suffering? I mean, I know you prefer not to get involved and all, but with your connection to everything, doesn’t all the suffering just, I don’t know, drive you crazy?”
He asked me a question back. He asked me if all the art that came out of man’s suffering wasn’t enough to make it all worthwhile? Wasn’t one Van Gogh painting worth the suffering of a generation?
I told him, “No.” Surely an omnipotent being could come up with another form of inspiration. Surely if God were to just show himself to people with artistic potential that that would produce art as great as any that came out of pain.
Like he does far too often, God dodged my argument and went off in a new direction. He asked me why I liked watching situation-comedy TV shows. He pointed out that those shows were filled with people suffering and struggling to make it through their modest lives, yet I didn’t write to the networks and petition them to improve the lot of their characters.
So that was it. The great answer to the plight of man. The Earth is God’s own sitcom.
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