“Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate,

I find under the boughs of love and hate,

In all poor foolish things that live a day,

Eternal beauty wandering on her way.”

What reminded me of this poem were my thoughts about leaving God. In my teens and twenties I was immersed in Charismatic Christianity. One of the many core ideas here was that one’s life was ruled by God. All that happened was either expressly willed by God or could be used by Him to shape one’s Christian life. This idea is epitomised in St.Paul’s teaching as, for example in the verse in Romans “All things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28) or as another translation puts it :”God works all things together for good for those who love Him.” It’s a comforting doctrine that no matter what may occur in my life, God can and will use it for my benefit. This doctrine neatly “solves” one aspect of the problem of Evil .Whilst God may not have explicitly  have caused an earthquake or a terrorist bomb or a car crash, He nonetheless will take these events and help us find some good in them. (Which is fine as far as it goes. It just doesn’t go far enough. It is an unsatisfactory theodicy.) Take away an all purposing God and what is one left with? For me, one is left with seeing eternal beauty in all poor foolish things that live a day. Or to use Arundhati Roy’s phrase, one is left with the God of Small Things.

I remember once talking to a chaplain at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. He was saying how many parents ask “Why did this happen?” in relation to a child who may have died. He said that he often replied that the meaning is that there is no meaning. I interpret this as a way of saying,”The only meaning in your child’s death is the meaning you are able to give it. That is the last gift you can give your child. To shape some meaning out of the loss.” I think this holds true for all loss. We have the power to give shape, form and meaning to the events and circumstances of our lives. We may choose to see events as being ordained by a deity even if we cannot understand why this should be the case. (“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”was Job’s response to his suffering). Or we find a more mundane way of giving meaning. We set up a charity; we run marathons; we train as counsellors; there are innumerable ways in which we can give meaning to Life. To find eternal beauty wandering on her way. This way of Being is both harder and easier than believing in an omnipotent divine Father. It means grappling with very hard, difficult questions that risk swamping us. These questions are all the harder because we are thrown back on our own resources .We can no longer say, “This is the will of God” and hope that somehow an answer will be forthcoming. We are left to ourselves and to find eternal beauty where we may. Whilst that is hard I still prefer it to an idea that a mystical being is somehow in charge of my destiny.