Krista Tippett, in Speaking of Faith (Penguin, 2007), talks about the need to deal with difficult things - and comments that good things don't just cancel them out. She comments: ".. the way we deal with the loses of our lives, large and small, may be what most determines our capacity to be present to the whole of our lives; we burn out not because we have stopped caring, but because are hearts are too full of grief." She adds: ".. the concomitant consequences of endless, needless suffering in the world do not become less troubling with time. Even as I learn new vocabularies of sense and wonder I continue to find that suffering too has imponderable variation. I learn not to imagine that beautiful words and lives will somehow snuff out what is dark and difficult. Again and again I am fatigued by a sense of powerlessness at injustices and atrocities close to home and far away." (p. 212/3)
Wouldn't it be good if we were able to use good things to cancel out bad ones - but it doesn't work like that, though it is true that though the bad things damage us, the good ones sustain us. It is also true that God is with us in all things.
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