Good people do good things.
So it never makes sense to me, when bad things happen to them. I just don’t know what to make of it.
Such was the case in the life of Edith Cavell.
Her life started as so many lives do. Cavell was born in a village near Norwich on December 4, 1865 in England. Her dad was a vicar for 45 years there in that little town. She was the eldest of four children. For a time, she worked as a governess for a family in Brussels. But her father became ill, so she returned home to care for him. At some point, he passed away. But, it was that experience — caring for her dad — that made her decide to become a nurse.
She became a really good nurse, too.
Before World War I began in 1914, Cavell served for a number of years as the matron of a nurse training school in Brussels.
But then things started to shift. The city was captured and occupied by the Germans in the first month of the war. Despite that, Cavell chose to remain at her post, tending to German soldiers and Belgians alike.
Then it happened. In August 1915, German authorities arrested her and accused her of helping British and French prisoners-of-war to escape Belgium for neutral Holland.
She was imprisoned and put on trial. Dang it. In reality, she was just being a nurse and helping people. She was sentenced to death for this.
Though diplomats from the neutral governments of the United States and Spain fought to commute her sentence, their efforts were ultimately in vain.
On the morning of October 12, 1915, the 49-year-old British nurse Edith Cavell was executed by a German firing squad in Brussels, Belgium.
And that is what happened on this date, in 1915.
The theological problem of trying to explain why evil and suffering exist in the world is referred to as theodicy.
Theodicy is “the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil,” as explained by Webster.
It refers to the “philosophical and theological concept of addressing the problem of evil within the context of belief in a benevolent and all-powerful God.”
It is quite the challenge to think about. How can we come to terms with the existence of so much evil, suffering, and injustice in the world while maintaining a belief in the goodness and omnipotence of a higher power? If God is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing, how can God let these things happen?
Of course, I am not the first one to ask this. This concept has been a subject of philosophical and theological discussion for centuries. People have, for a long time now, raised questions about the nature of God, the nature of evil, and the compatibility of these two aspects.
Oh, there certainly are a lot of religious and philosophical perspectives about this problem. Some people argue that evil and suffering are a result of human free will. Other folks propose that these things serve a greater purpose in the divine plan that may not be fully comprehensible to humans.
How does someone find a way to maintain faith in a benevolent and omnipotent God despite the presence of evil in the world?
The other part of this is the discussion between chaos and order. If the Universe has purpose and design, then why do some events occur that are evil and horrible, while other events are good and wonderful? However, if the Universe is completely random and chaotic, it simply means that when evil happens, sh*t happens.
The speculation that the Universe has no inherent purpose or design is a hard one for me to come to terms with. Because in science, things follow laws and known patterns.
It is all quite perplexing to me.
But I do know this for certain. If no reasonable explanation exists to this question about bad things happening to good people, I still have the following understanding.
We, as humans, can choose to be good in all circumstances. Things may have no purpose, but we do.
We are the ones who give value and meaning to life.
People can and do good things in their own realms. Despite what is happening Universally.
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“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“A man said to the Universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the Universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
― Stephen Crane, War Is Kind and Other Poems
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“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”
― Rumi
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The good. The bad. Design, or random.
