When There Is No Meaning
Wisdom from Ronnie… Faith in God is not an insulator from tragedy or injustice. Following Christ or holding to faith does not guarantee a trouble-free life. Nor will having “more faith” lead to less difficulty in this unfair world or meaningful explanation for every sorrow. Faith is minimum protection from suffering, but thank God, it is maximum support.
In many ways, clergy play the role of “meaning-makers” for their congregations. Their vocational role is to interpret this sometimes senseless world so that it has some kind of purpose. After all, we are not, to summarize Jerome Bruner, simply “information-processors,” because information alone is not enough.
What we see, hear, feel, and experience has to be arranged and interpreted in such a way that life doesn’t devolve into meaninglessness or hopelessness. Faith, thus, is not an emotional crutch – as some critics would argue – it functions as a meaning-making exercise.
Yet, all explanations fail when forced to interpret the horror of what happened at Emanuel AME Church just days ago. We the meaning-makers, we who are charged with producing tidy, digestible solutions to all of life’s problems, well, we just can’t do it . The tragedy simply doesn’t compute.
In an iconic photo taken outside of Emanuel last…
View original post 529 more words
Pastor Michael Moore's Blog 