E mmanuel from Pastor Kurt Busiek

This Sunday night, Jan. 25, from 6-8 p.m. we've scheduled a Family Fun Night at the YMCA.  The gym, pool and volleyball court will be available. 

I was on Facebook tonight and a friend posted a passage from the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People where Rabbi Kusher uses an image from Thornton Wilder.  I thought the image was good and pass it along to you:

"More than forty years after writing The Bridge of San Luis Rey, an older and wiser Thornton Wilder returned to the question of why good people suffer in another novel, The Eighth Day. The book tells the story of a good and decent man whose life is ruined by bad luck and hostility. He and his family suffer although they are innocent. At the end of the novel, where the reader would hope for a happy ending, with heroes rewarded and villains punished, there is none. Instead, Wilder offers us the image of a beautiful tapestry. Looked at from the right side, it is an intricately woven work of art, drawing together threads of different lengths and colors to make up an inspiring picture. But turn the tapestry over, and you will see a hodgepodge of many threads, some short and some long, some smooth and some cut and knotted, going off in different directions. Wilder offers this as his explanation of why good people have to suffer in this life. God has a pattern into which all of our lives fit. His pattern requires that some lives be twisted, knotted, or cut short, while others extend to impressive lengths, not because one thread is more deserving than another, but simply because the pattern requires it. Looked at from underneath, from our vantage point in life, God’s pattern of reward and punishment seems arbitrary and without design, like the underside of a tapestry. But looked at from outside this life, from God’s vantage point, every twist and knot is seen to have its place in a great design that adds up to a work of art."

My friend concluded:  "There is much that is moving in this suggestion, and I can imagine that many people would find it comforting. Pointless suffering, suffering as punishment for some unspecified sin, is hard to bear. But suffering as a contribution to a great work of art designed by God Himself may be seen, not only as a tolerable burden, but even as a privilege. So one victim of medieval misfortune is supposed to have prayed, “Tell me not why I must suffer. Assure me only that I suffer for Thy sake.” '