Simon Fowler

20 years ago today, on Good Friday, I was sitting in the lounge at my parent’s house in Harrow, north-west London, happening to look at the clock, 4:20pm, and I thought to myself, “oh my! … wow! … God exists?!”. And then amazingly my life went in a different direction. So my dad said, a better one. I have no other explanation other than that the invisible God, who came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth that first Good Friday 2000 years ago and was crucified on a cross, inexplicably made himself known to me and put a different Spirit within me.

This isn’t an argument for faith, for faith in God, or even faith in Jesus Christ. This is just (part of) my story. Make of it what you will. I may dare, in future posts, to try to make an argument for those, but that’s not what this is. Everyone has a story to tell, and this is mine. The story is still ongoing. And truly, it will only make sense, to me or anyone, if it’s part of the bigger story that God himself is telling.

A few weeks earlier an American exchange student, Karen, turned up at my volleyball club. A normal, funny and energetic person who confounded me by being normal, having deep faith in Jesus Christ and was able to say, “er, yeh, I don’t know, that’s a good question, I don’t get that either”. Her realness made it impossible to write her off as a whack job.

I was 22, fit and healthy, and had friends, family, parents, sport, car, travel, money, girls. I was at the peak, really, of life. No need nor searching for God or party-pooping religion.

Conversations with Karen revealed a couple of things, both profound. One was that I’d never actually thought about my life, purpose, meaning, reality, God. I had no intellectual or reflective life at all. In fact, I didn’t read, or think, about anything. The other was that there was a depth – of wonder and of grief – to life that I hadn’t known but now realized was real. So I was compelled to give these some serious attention. In retrospect, that was probably the moment that God took the blinders off me.

She handed me Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. I read it. Didn’t get it. Read it again. Still didn’t get it. As I said, I had NO intellectual life. Twice more. And on the fourth time, at 4:20pm, that Good Friday, I thought, “Holy Cow!? oops, sorry lord! But wow!”. And that was it. It felt like a revelation, though deciding if I was going to live “for God” or not felt like a real decision, albeit a no-brainer.

I have no other explanation for what happened next other than that the Jesus-God changed my heart and mind: I started think and have compassion for the poor (and ended up in El Salvador during the civil war and in the Burmese jungle instead of sight-seeing around the world). I started feeling, and slowly showing, gratitude and love for my parents (my dad started liking me). I started to feel that maybe, given the ghastliness of the world, that maybe I should and could do something about it (still working out what that means). I started to take an interest in this amazing world (I developed an intellectual life and an appreciation for art and beauty). In my initial zeal I did go through an embarrassing black-and-white phase that I’m afraid didn’t show a lot of sensitivity or understanding to those who disagreed with me (I like to think I developed some humility quickly).

I’m sure more people do these things already, and do them better and with more heart and sincerity and actual action than I ever will. All I’m saying is that I changed, and I have no other explanation for it than Jesus the God-man who was crucified, so it seems, for me. Not just me, but yet me.

I say I changed because of him because I see and feel his death, and resurrection, as effecting love, truth*, forgiveness and reconciliation in me. Love, truth, forgiveness and reconciliation. These seem good to me. But they diminish when I pull away from God or think more about myself than of others, they grow as I trust in him and give my life for others.

That’s my story. Not everyone’s is like that, though I’ve met many who tell similar stories. It also doesn’t quite make sense yet. Life and reality doesn’t make a lot of sense yet actually. But I believe in One who ultimately will make sense of it. And so far it seems a good, even if not easy, path to be on.

* I want it. I don’t care, really, what it is, even if it ends up meaning that Jesus isn’t true. I don’t like hell or death and I’d love it if gravity would sometimes not be there, but if they’re real I’m an idiot to deny them. I’m aware of ontological and epistemological truths (told you I started reading), that there is Truth, and truth, and that some truths are relative. But I have both deep conviction and, as far as I’m able, a totally open mind to where the evidence takes me. You’ll have to take my word for it.

There’s no ultimate escape from pain. Gautama Buddha observed the inexorability of suffering. Shakespeare, before we knew about evolution by natural selection, saw “Nature, red in tooth and claw”. It seems that suffering is at the heart of reality itself.

Even if we do escape it for a time, it just reappears in a different form. Or in a different person.

So our main problem, as M. Scott Peck observed years ago, is that we think having a problem is the problem. We think that pain and suffering and trouble and strife are bizarre and embarrassing abnormalities in an otherwise smooth and happy world.

The cure for that problem, dear readers, is courage and hope. And you’ll find courage and hope amongst the poor and those who work alongside the poor. You’ll also find it, in a very different way, amongst scientists, researchers and others who look at some of the world’s toughest problems straight in the face, day after day, year after year.

You may even find it in yourself. Courage and hope in the face of pain. Not looking away, not pretending it isn’t there. But also not letting it have the last word, as though it determines the course or value of your life.

The source of courage and reason for hope depends to some degree on personality and circumstance: personal failure, job loss, accident, cancer, depression, traumatic injury, poverty – all provide different possibilities of hope and will be reacted to differently by individuals.

But hope must not be confused with optimism: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” So describes the Stockdale Paradox.

I confess that I don’t totally understand it. I’ve not been in such a situation as to warrant knowing the difference. But I believe it, and I’ve witnessed it, amongst the poor and oppressed in El Salvador and in Burma; stories I may tell another time. I also see it exemplified, in fact, defined and extended, in the suffering of Jesus of Nazareth on the night before he was crucified.

On Maundy Thursday we Christians [must] remember with solemn humility that Jesus, knowing the betrayal, abandonment, suffering and death that was before him, did two amazing things. First he shared a last meal with his disciples, including his betrayer. Second, he washed their feet and told them, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” In the face of death, Jesus turned his suffering into an act of love and an exhortation to love. Suffering, it appears, is at the heart of love, which is ultimate reality.

It is important also to remember, and to contemplate this Maundy Thursday, that his suffering was only just beginning. Resurrection was far off, almost unseen, almost unbelievable. Instead, death and hell was before him. A long, long night, increasingly alone, increasingly in despair.

Jesus suffered alone for us, so that we would suffer with, (lit. have com – passion), others. Because we have a God who literally identifies with our suffering, we can and must bear each other’s sufferings. We must bear it, in all its hideous ugliness and persistence.

People you know, or you yourself, know that there are usually no quick solutions to suffering; no platitudes, optimistic statements, or symptom relief that will satisfy. More than anything, you want presence; simple, helpless, powerless, wordless, loving presence that won’t give up no matter how bad it gets or how long it lasts.

On this day then, let’s cure the ‘problem’ of pain by being willing to face suffering, with and for each other.