A new pilgrim post is online at LaityLodge.org
My wife and I were at the Laity Lodge New Year’s retreat at the end of 2011. Jerry Root, a C.S. Lewis scholar from Wheaton College, was the speaker. He did a couple of sessions on the classic problem of evil, using Lewis’ thoughts primarily from his famous book, “The Problem of Pain.” In the morning session on Saturday he said something that I’ve been thinking about ever since.
Jerry said that when we speak of evil and suffering, the conversation is challenging because our perspective is always changing. A thing that seemed terribly bad when you were twenty might not seem nearly as bad when you are forty and looking back on it. Something that seemed positively evil to you when it occurred might be revealed in time to have been only painful and not especially evil at all. Maybe it even turned out to be an essential part of your growth as a human being.
Which perspective is the right one? The immediate perspective or the one years later? The latter is wiser but the former is more in touch with the painful reality of the moment…
Read the rest of this essay at the Laity Lodge website.
