Where is the pain in the world right now?  Or perhaps a better question is: where is God in the midst of all the pain we see in the world.

Identifying the points of pain isn’t difficult.  In fact, the suffering in the world is all too apparent and found in too many places.

•  Our mother earth is lashing out through tornados, hurricanes, volcanos, torrential rain, earthquakes, tsunamis, and wildfires as she is wrenching from the effects of climate change.
• The Syrian civil war has created a refugee crisis in Europe bringing millions of homeless and desperate families into bordering countries which have been ill equipped to handle such an influx.
• Families and entire communities are suffering from the effects of drug addiction and overdose deaths which have been rising at alarming rates.
• Women and children are in pain as they are preyed upon in Central American countries, causing a stream of refugees moving north to Mexico and America.
• Families are in pain as over three-thousand children were taken from their parents at the American border and placed in camps.  As of this writing, there are still more than 500 children who have not been reunited with their families.

I could certainly go on.  I haven’t mentioned the effects of gun violence, poverty, racism, sexism, hunger, homelessness, sex trafficking, poor education, economic dislocation, income inequality, greed and too much more.  But this post isn’t intended to be a litany of woes in the world. 

What I really want to explore is the question of where is God in light of all the suffering.

It is not uncommon to hear people proclaim that God must have a plan and as such the suffering we see must be a part of that plan.  Can that really be true?  I was raised in a very loving family and at no time did my parents deliberately cause me suffering in order to teach me a lesson.  My father and mother – who were fallible – could never bring themselves to use suffering as a teaching tool.  If my fallible parents were incapable of such actions, I have to believe that the idea is alien to the Divine, as well.

In short, I don’t believe that pain and suffering is part of God’s plan.

So, if it is not part of God’s plan, is it the result of an active agent of evil in the world?  Is the devil preying on people in order to drive us from the arms of God?  As I’ve written before, I don’t believe in the devil.  Evil, I believe, is the result of people closing off their hearts to God and following the dictates of their own ego.
 
And so the question remains: where is God in all of this?  I believe he is tapping us on the shoulder.

A good friend and Baptist preacher once told me that he believes God has finished his work in the world.  I looked at him kind of puzzled – because after all – this was a prominent Baptist preacher telling me that God was done with us.  He explained that God isn’t done with us – but he is done with intervening directly in the world.  I agree.

As a Quaker, I believe there is “that of God” in each of us; that my unique and eternal soul is linked directly to the Divine.  I strive to carve out time each day to sit in stillness; to be in communion with the part of the Divine that is within me.  I don’t pretend that God talks to me.  Hearing God talk to me isn’t what sitting in stillness is all about. 

I have come to believe that the time I sit in stillness is the time I am preparing myself to hear the voice of God.  It is rare that I feel I have heard God from out of the stillness.  More typically, as I go about my day, I will hear a thought.  It will often be just a quiet idea that pops into my head.  But it will be one that comes with a sense of certainty; a sense that it is a leading from the Divine.  And then I know I must act on that leading.  God tapped me on the shoulder and nudged me to act on his behalf.

There is a video circulating on social media by a business coach named Bill Hart.  In the 2.5 minute video, Hart describes an encounter he had with a woman in a restaurant as a result of his sense that he was called by God.  I encourage you to watch it.  In this video, Hart aptly describes how a leading from God appears and what joy is derived from acting on it.

And so, back to the original question:  where is God in all of the pain and suffering in the world?  He is calling us to listen and to act.  He is urging us to seek out the pain in the same way that a sunflower seeks out the sun and to minister to those in need.  He calls us to listen for his voice – as it is there as surely is the sun at noon – and to act on it. 
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It is far too easy to curse God for allowing suffering to persist.  It is a bit harder to recognize that it is we who are continuing the suffering by ignoring the call of God.  After all, there are no acts of God without acts of people. ​

I don’t pretend to know much about Quantum Physics, but I’m fascinated by the idea that studying the smallest parts of our universe might tell us something about space, consciousness, God and ourselves. 

Consider what I’m about to say very carefully.  When we get down to the Quantum level – in the area of atoms and protons and such – we find that they behave as if they were conscious.  They can detect when they are being observed and alter how they act as a result of the observation.  This phenomena is often explained by the “double slit experiment” ; one of the most famous exercises in Quantum Physics. 

There used to be a big debate in the scientific community about whether light is a wave or is it made up of particles (matter).  Now, we learn that it can be both.  And, whether it exhibits as a wave or a particle depends on if it is observed and measured.  Even more astounding is the idea that this dual property of wave and particle is also found in matter, meaning that all matter can also be measured as a wave.

Equally puzzling but just as real is the fact that sub-atomic particles can instantaneously communicate with each other from great distances away and alter how they act.  If one particle is spinning left, then the partner particle will spin right.  If these paired particles are separated – by millions of miles – they will continue to spin in consort, even if they have to change to do so.  For example, if particle A changes and begins spinning from right to left, then particle B - which can be hundreds or millions of miles away - will instantaneously begin spinning from left to right in order to stay in sync. 

A recent book on Quantum Physics by Philip Ball explains how the universe is really a series of probabilities.  In the book, Ball talks about how the world is made up of “ifs” and there are more ifs than there are answers   Here’s an example.  Scientists can calculate the probability of where a particle may land, but they don’t really know because – until it is measured – the particle is a wave of energy.  And it is only in the measurement, that the wave of energy become a mass – a particle.  Think about that for a moment.  Everything is a wave of energy until it is viewed and only then - as a result of the observation - does the mass appear.

What I take away from Quantum Physics is this:  We humans sometimes think  we have it all figured out, but we don’t.  Are atoms conscious?  Can they talk to each other through space and alter time?  How can matter be a ray of energy that only becomes a mass when observed? 

​After taking my little excursion into the world of Quantum Physics, I ran into the below quote from the Bhagavad Gita which floored me.  This quote – written hundreds of years ago – can be seen to describe the world through Quantum Physics prism.

The wise see that there is action in the midst of inaction,
and inaction in the midst of action.
Their consciousness is unified,
and every act is done with complete awareness.

When a man has let go of attachments,
when his mind is rooted in wisdom,
everything he does is worship,
and his actions all melt away.

God is the offering. God
is the offered, poured out by God;
God is attained by all those
who see God in every action.

Perhaps, through the study of Quantum Physics we get a different glimpse of the hand of God.  We see that the world is neither black nor white, but rather it is the possibility of both.  And, it is we who choose how to view it.
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Being a Quaker is hard work.  Quakers have no creed or dogma and consequently, each person is left to work out his/her own relationship with God and the world.  This is done through prayer, reflection, studying, reading the bible and other inspirational works and in conversation with friends.  The following is the result of my discernment over the course of a lifetime. 
     
Sit in Stillness and Listen for God – I’ve come to learn that everything is grounded in prayer.  I usually get into trouble when I act without prayer; when I listen more to my ego than I do for the guidance of God.  When I listen to my ego, I usually find myself setting up a false duality: It is me against you.  It is me against the world.  I have to protect myself so no one can take advantage of me.  The other default when I listen to my ego too much is that I fall into a cycle of frantic thinking.  It’s like having a sleepless night.  I want to go to sleep – but my mind keeps racing with one thought driving out another, and then another, and then another. You get the picture.  Prayer usually brings me to a calming center where I can watch (sometimes with amusement and sometimes with humility) how my thoughts can take me down a road I shouldn’t travel

​I used to pray by asking God for things: for clarity on what I’m supposed to do in life, for the safety of my family, for justice in the world.  In retrospect, my prayers were pretty much a one-way street.  I spent more time asking (urging, begging, cajoling, bargaining) than I spent listening.  Now, my prayer time is just to sit in stillness and listen.  That’s it.  This sounds simple but it takes practice and discipline.  Here is a resource for anyone wishing to explore this unique way of being in communion with the Devine.

There is That of God in Everyone – This is usually associated with a belief espoused by the Quakers.  But, I came to the Quakers because the idea that God is present within each of us is something that has been guiding me for years.  To say this in a more mystical way – I believe I am a spiritual being linked to God through my unique and eternal soul.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin perhaps expressed this the best when he wrote “ We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a physical experience.”

This idea that we are spiritual beings linked directly to God is what makes the contemplative prayer I discussed above so relevant.  When we sit in stillness and listen – we are not listening to a God that is somewhere “on high”.  We are listening for that part of the divine  within us.  We are tapping into the presence of God that is always available to us.  As the eastern poet Rabindranath Tagore said, “The winds of grace are always blowing.  All we need do is raise our sails.”  Sitting in stillness is how we raise our sails.

This and Thee are the Glory of God – I am an ardent sailor and I find it appropriate that I had a mystical experience on a sail boat.  Sometimes, usually in late July or August, we get a spectacular moon rising from the horizon of Lake Michigan at the same time that the sun is setting over the city.  This was such a night.  The sky was pink, the wind was warm as I stood in the back of the boat taking it all in.  Suddenly, I had a thought which was:  “This and Thee are the Glory of God.”  I was marveling at my surroundings and could easily understand the world as an expression of the glory of God.  But me?  Am I an expression of the glory of God?  It took me a many months of pondering this thought to fully accept the idea that – just like the moon rise over the lake – I am a unique expression of the glory of God.  And, so are each of you.  This is the same sentiment expressed in the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem – As Kingfishers Catch Fire.  The seminal line in the poem is “ What I do is me; for that I came.”  We are each unique and glorious and an intimate expression of the love and creativity of God.

The Link Between Prayer and Action – Prayer must lead to action.  If we are truly praying and truly listening for God’s response to our prayer, then we are led to act.  My faith tells me that the only way God moves in the world is through us.  If we aren’t grounded in prayer and working for social justice, then we are not fulfilling our spiritual mandate and we are not helping to bring forth the kingdom of God on earth.  Conversely, action that isn’t rooted in prayerful contemplation can quickly become nothing more than an ego-centric battle to win; where we are comfortable with the idea that the “ends justify the means”.  The ends do not justify the means if the means we undertake are hateful, deceitful or demeaning.  We see enough of the hate driven action for change to know that it cannot be centered on the Devine.

Evil is the Absence of Light, Not the Presence of Darkness  –  I’ve thought quite a bit about the idea of evil and the devil.  I don’t believe in the presence of an eternal evil being.  I believe that God is within each person and those who act with evil intent are people who allow their ego to drive them; people who spend little time contemplating the call of God within their own heart.  The best analogy is in nature.  Does it get dark at night because some entity of darkness descends upon the world, or does it get dark because the light of the sun is on the other side of the world and hidden to us.  It is the latter.  It is the same with the light of God in the hearts of people.

Mercy Within Mercy Within Mercy – In his book, The Signs of Jonas, Thomas Merton pens a quote that I find to be a comforting expression of God’s love and mercy.  We would all do well to live a life centered on the thought that we shall bestow mercy within mercy within mercy to all we encounter.  Here’s the quote:

“I have always known the vile as precious: for what is vile I know not at all. What was cruel has become merciful. What is now merciful was never cruel. I have always overshadowed Jonas with my mercy, and cruelty I know not at all. Have you had sight of Me, Jonas, My child? Mercy within mercy within mercy.”

So, my spiritual journey over 60 plus years has led me to this:  Sit in stillness and listen for God’s call.  Act on that call, knowing that you are loved regardless of what you do.  Don’t succumb to the idea of evil and remember that God’s mercy is afforded to each of us, just as we afford it to all others.