Matthew 18.10: Do not despise one of these little ones for their angels always behold the face of my Father in heaven
God together swept out by the wave
No habitation left to stand upon the earth
Sea swallows without comment
smoothes memory all away
The children fathers mothers are not
Once little ones quite nothing now
waved away, Tsunami despised
Died with no arms about them
No eyes upon them
And the children who live still?
How can we be children without father, mother?
Rolled still by the wave, trafficked by the sea,
Let down by tectonic fall
Despised by unhomely earth
Busy with its own story
*
This poem, Tsunami theology, is lament, a sustained refusal of comfort. There are many sorrows and pains in life which people ride, but there was no riding the tsunami. There are other losses which carry integral consolation: when someone is killed when doing some good action, there is within it heroic virtue to be celebrated. But a tsunami sweeps us into company with Rachel, mourning for her children and refusing to be consoled (Matthew 2.18). in this context, Ulrich Simon’s ‘rejection of comfort’ (A theology of Auschwitz, chapter 10) will not seem hyperbolic.
But Simon could not, would not leave it there – he knows of ‘resurrection and ascension’ (p137) and so can write chapter 11, ‘What then shall we do?’.
By itself, this poem is true to the brutal event of Tsunami, in that it obliterates hope. It reflects my immediate reaction. And when I read it, it takes me back to the reality. We know that time does not heal, even if the necessities of living take our mind off the pain. But so long as we have memory, triggers bring it back. It stands lonely by itself, as lament, without comfort or explanation.
A few years later, I was writing Entry Point with Keith White.
Our book thinks its way through Matthew 18.1-14. Jesus placed a child in the midst of his disciples who were arguing about who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The better way, the only way, he said, was to find humility with the child, to receive a child and thereby receive Jesus. That was his
positive invitation. Then a warning: do not cause a child to stumble. Or to put it in other terms, do not despise one of these little ones (v10).
Despising little ones is deeply embedded in the ways of the world. It occurs in personal relations and impersonal systems. It cannot be minimized by being counted as occasional aberration. There is rather ‘multi-dimensional despising’ in human experience. It is, we might say, Tsunamic.
Children swept away or orphaned are
Despised by unhomely earth
Busy with its own story
The poem is presented below within the context it is given in Entry Point.
There are two reasons for doing this.
First, in my view, Christian faith and humanity both cry to heaven against thoroughgoing lament, giving sin, death, nothingness a sweeping victory. We may not be able to do more than cry to the Father from the cross, or perhaps sow a seed that will only be a tree long after we are gone, but that can and must be done. Tsunamic lament be heard in its rawness but also as it is taken into the hope-building suffering of God.
Secondly, working at this first task gives an opportunity to post a sample of Entry Point, to give more readers a sample. The book is available on Kindle and elsewhere.
I am specially glad the sample comes from chapter 7. Its place in the book was questioned, when we were writing it. And I have a sense that readers pass it by, finding little to comment on, let alone take any further. But for me, it is a rich, important part of the book. Writing it, reflecting on the questions and possibilities it opens up, takes me deeper into the mystery of the grace and mercy of God, our Lord and Judge, in the world. All Entry Point is, for me, a confession of thinking faith, and that is intensified in this chapter.