Long Overdue

WAY back at the beginning of Fall Quarter, Susan asked me about my reading list for my Pastoral Care & Human Suffering class. I thoroughly enjoyed the class and the reading, so Susan, and anyone else really, here's my list:

Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
A Grief Observed also by C.S. Lewis (makes sure to read Lewis' books in that order. The first is a treatise of heartless theological proportion. The second in his response to the death of his beautiful wife, Joy. Funny how the right answers don't seem quite so easily right in the face of grief.)
Suffering by Dorothee Soelle
The Wounded Prophet: A Biography of Henri Nouwen by Michael Ford
The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen (This book totally did me in. Spent an entire Friday night in tears, working my way through the depths of Henri's loneliness, suffering and pain.)
God & Human Suffering: A Theology of the Cross by Douglas John Hall

We also read several articles, notably by Jurgen Moltmann and Shirley Guthrie. Interestingly, a class in pastoral care provided, for me, the best instruction in systematic and biblical theology, especially in relation to theodicy and the problem of evil. As I learned from C.S. Lewis, theodicy (speaking justly of God in the midst of suffering) is necessarily a lived theology. Bad theology hurts people. Having the "right" answer in crisis comforts one person - the comforter ("phew! I said the right thing!"). From the standpoint of the bereaved, Alisson Krauss reminds us wanna-be-pastoral-types, "You say it best when you say nothing at all." In other words, shut the hell up.

This is hardly an adequate summation of a quarter's worth of work. As yet, this has been the most important class I have taken at the seminary. Next quarter promises plenty of hours in the library but then, what else is there to do during a Michigan grey winter? 4rth floor, here I come.