TRUTH . . . ENDS SEPARATION

You have by now realised that I usually rendezvous with truth at Wit's End Corner. Perhaps when all human strength is expended and my raging soul exhausted into listening stillness. Then I seem to become utterly real and honest, holding nothing back, ready to hear, whatever the content. It is evidently not that way for everyone, although I am convinced that seed which falls into honest ground does bear much fruit.

As I have indicated, suffering can play a great part in the discovery of truth and I am just now reminded of a time when I was once more experiencing an aching sadness, sharing the pain of those close to me. In this emotional condition I turned on the TV for the six o'clock news and was assailed further by the intense suffering of maimed and dying children in the Balkans, of torn families wrenched apart by ethnic atrocities. On top of my own personal sorrow it was the final straw. I retired to my bedroom and cried myself out.

With what breath I had left, I complained to the One who had created everything and who seemed to have deserted his handiwork, declining yet again to intervene. From my perspective, 'The whole creation was groaning and travailing together in pain' - to quote a familiar passage from the apostle Paul's letter to the Romans. But doctrine was not going to help me now. Once again I needed a life-giving touch.

'Don't you ever cry?' I croaked bitterly, 'I know the Son of God identified with our lot, but that was two thousand years ago . . . what about today? Don't you cry over the terrible anguish in the world right now?' My searing complaint was along those lines, but I didn't expect an answer. I was just unloading.

That was when the rare but familiar stillness descended. I knew better than to move. Lying face down on my bed I could almost feel the weight of the silence and my arguments ceased. I will never be able to exaggerate the import of the words that rose within me:

'I am lying on that bed crying now, son . . .'

//Continued