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Our next door neighbors have a cat which they adopted after it strayed into our neighborhood. Fittingly they named it “Pop-Up” after its habit of just popping up here and there on random occasions. I think it has been a good match – the cat didn’t appear to be leaving our neck of the woods any time soon. Pop-Up is an indoor/outdoor cat and sometimes she will be outside when I take our dog for a walk. Usually the two run up to each other, each trying to initiate play or communicate in their distinctive ways. I am amazed a little at this because, as much as is possible in the brief time they spend with each other they do manage to overcome the language barrier that exists between dogs and cats.

I mention all of this because several days ago when I took our dog out for a walk, Pop-up was preoccupied with toying with something in our neighbors' front lawn. After our dog was finished with her business, I took her inside and then went back out alone to see what the cat had caught. As I walked over to her I hoped that it was only a cicada or a moth. When I got up to her, though, my worst fear was confirmed. In the grass next to her was a juvenile chipmunk, still alive, but not moving much. I didn’t see any blood on its fur or on the grass next to where it lay. I picked it up, trying to avoid its teeth, and held it in my hand for a while, stroking the brown fur on the top of its head, trying to judge whether it was just petrified or if it had been bitten. Cats’ saliva contains a neurotoxin that often eventually kills small animals even if they happen to escape from a feline predator.

I carried the chipmunk over to the wooded riverbank in front of our home and set it down on the opposite side of the retaining/flood wall that separates our housing addition from the flood plain. As I left it there my thoughts kept returning to the violence that is part and parcel of the universe, whether it be chipmunks being killed, buildings collapsing, or stars being sucked into black holes. These issues have been weighing heavily on my mind lately in large part because I am trying in my personal life to come to a better understanding and implementation of prayer. The mental roadblock has been what, exactly is prayer? To whom or what do I pray? How does one go about prayer? Is it even possible?

I recently finished reading theologian Sallie McFague’s book, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology and so her thoughts on natural evil were swimming around as all of the was occurring. In addressing the issue of natural selection and Christianity, she writes:

“Solidarity with the oppressed, then, becomes the Christian form of both consonance with and defiance of the evolutionary principle. It is consonant with it because it claims that there is a next stage of evolution on our planet, one that is not primarily genetic but cultural…It is defiant of it because it suggests that the principle needed for this to occur is not natural selection of the survival of the fittest, but the solidarity of each with all…At this point, I believe we have no choice but to admit that th radical inclusiveness that is at the heart of Christian faith, especially inclusion of the oppressed, is not compatible with evolution, even cultural evolution…(T)he suffering of God- and ourselves-with those who, nonetheless, suffer, recognizes that irremediable, unconscionable, unremitting, horrific suffering does occur both to individuals and to whole species, suffering that is beyond our best efforts to address and seemingly beyond God’s as well…To say that salvation is the direction of creation…is a statement of faith, not of fact” (pp 172-173,180-181, emphasis mine).

As I struggle with these thoughts it seems clear to me, at least at this point, that there is in all of this a heavy mixture of disappointment and hope, faith and doubt. I found myself returning to the thoughts of Paul Tillich:

“There is no faith without separation. Out of the element of participation follows the certainty of faith; out of the element of separation follows the doubt in faith. And each is essential for the nature of faith. Sometimes certainty conquers doubt, but it cannot eliminate doubt…Sometimes doubt conquers faith, but it still contains faith…In those who rest on their unshakable faith, pharisaism and fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed. Doubt is overcome not by repression but by courage” (Dynamics of Faith, pp 116-117).

New Testament scholars, in commenting on St. Mark’s description of the death of Jesus, note the difference between it and the other Gospels’ versions. Mark’s description is the simplest and because of that the most devastating. It is not glorious; there are no words of wisdom coming from Jesus’ lips as he dies. Instead it gives us the last gasp of sorrow and confusion from a dying man: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It says that “Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last” (15.34-37 NSRV). I understand the carpenter’s cries as he feels the utter despair and hopelessness as he undergoes the extreme agony of death and feels in those moments – perhaps hurting more than the pain and the agony – the feeling of futility. It is the feeling that this is all in vain…that there is in the end no purpose.

Does hope remain in this? Do I continue on in hope – longing for a God that does not hear? That does not respond? That is immune to all of this? Etsi deus non daretur? Is this the moment then? Is this the central issue? Is this the eternally returning decision: persistence in the face and presence of mockery? The disciples fled after Jesus’ death and with good reason. They fled in hatred, terror, and sorrow. But they say that this was not the end. Oh irreconcilable Force, you may do or be nothing. And if this is true, then so be it. But what do I do? Who am I for others?