Life Is Good(aside from all the crap)
- By Mark Dohle
- The Chapel - Catholic
- 0 Replies
Life Is Good(aside from all the crap)
Theodicy is the discipline that seeks to understand why there is so much suffering in the world. To say that human life is often tragic—filled with loss, pain, and mourning—is so obvious that it hardly needs saying. Yet countless pages have been written trying to explain it.There are some fortunate people for whom life is good in their younger years. But even for them, there comes a point when life begins to take its toll—when “things” start to happen.
When going through suffering, answers don’t mean much. In those moments, all that can be done is to take the next breath, do the next task, and somehow make it through the day. This tragic side of life is what fills the news. If it is not a natural disaster, it is one human being harming another. As the old saying goes, man is often a wolf to man.
Our lives can turn on a dime. This becomes more evident as the years pass and many of us discover how easily illness can come.
In 2011, I had a pacemaker put in. On Monday I was fine. By Tuesday, I was getting winded walking down the hallway, unable to manage stairs. I tried to ignore it—denial comes easily. I’ve been told men are especially prone to it. Whether that is true or not, I certainly gave it a good try. It didn’t work.
By Thursday, I was in the Veterans ER. Just like that, my heart began to fail me. In earlier times, many men died in their early sixties from what I had—conditions that are now treated with a pacemaker. I learned then how easily one can become sick—and how easily one might die. Had I waited a few more days, I might not be here.
The doctor showed some frustration when I told her how long it had been going on. Stupid, perhaps—but also understandable. Who really believes, deep down, that they might be dying?
Me? Nah. No way. That’s for other people.
And yet, life is good.
There is joy. There is peace, love, and friendship. Getting older even has its advantages—though the growing awareness of my mortality is not one of them. My inner life has changed over the years. My heart is different now, though I often wish I were further along.
My head and my heart still feel miles apart. Writing offers me a narrow path—a kind of one-lane entrance—into that inner country which remains, in many ways, a mystery. The softness of being that we are capable of still feels distant to me, and I cannot control this. I cannot force it.
All I can do is stay open and try to embrace life as it comes.
I carry many doubts—about almost everything. At times, existence can feel absurd, even meaningless. Yet long ago I made a decision: to deepen my faith. To follow those longings of the heart, however faint or obscure, that continue to draw me forward.
Often this search feels like walking through a desert. Still, something persists—something that urges me deeper. I believe this is grace, active in all of us, whether we recognize it or not.
There is no closure in faith. I cannot say, “This is it—I have arrived.” There is always more to face, more to wrestle with. Life has a way of bringing experiences—often not pleasant—that strip away illusions and leave the heart raw.
I still repress at times, though not as skillfully as I once did. Perhaps that is because I no longer want to hide.
In the midst of struggle, pain, seeking—and the occasional moments of joy—something shifts. Depression, for me, becomes harder to hold onto when I am fully engaged with the process. Not gone, but loosened.
I wish there were less pain and more joy. But perhaps I am given just enough joy to awaken a deeper thirst—one that nothing in this world can fully satisfy.
And yet, that joy does come.
It comes in small things:
in smiles,
in friendship (which is not a small thing at all),
in a gentle breeze,
in cold water when thirsty,
in the quiet goodness of ordinary people—the salt of the earth.
These small things matter.
Perhaps it is these moments that truly heal us. Not grand solutions or final answers, but brief, unbidden gifts—little havens scattered throughout the day. When they touch us, they do so beyond our control.
They come in the present moment—not in our worries about the future, nor in our regrets about the past.
And in those moments, quietly and without explanation, something in us is restored. -Br.MD
