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- Herausgeber: IVP Formatio
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Three deaths in three years. His mother. His best friend. And now, his two-year-old daughter. In this moving story a Christian author goes to a retreat center to grieve and face the hard questions about God that he is asking in the wake of these losses. If you have ever felt alone, betrayed, abandoned—if you have found yourself asking God why—this novel may be a source of hope. And if you have ever wondered what heaven is like, this book provides a beautiful vision. Room of Marvels is a masterful, dream-like tale that speaks to the eternal in the midst of our most painful earthly losses. This expanded edition of the beloved book has a new afterword from James Bryan Smith and a discussion guide for group use. Finding your room of marvels will give you reason to live. Again.
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A Story About Heaven that Heals the Heart
EXPANDED EDITION
Contents
FOREWORD
Dallas Willard
OF ALL THE TESTS THAT FRAY the confidence and nerves of Christians, the most difficult to bear is undoubtedly the death of loved ones. A legitimate part of the pain is simply parting. The fact that I now can no longer pick up the phone and talk to my sister or my father, or visit with them, is a lasting sorrow. But the fear and uncertainty in the face of death that is, unfortunately, the rule and not the exception is mainly based in failure of continued life beyond physical death to make any intuitive sense.
As Christians, we know—or at least have heard—the glorious words of Christ and his people about their future life in the presence of God. But, frankly, few really believe them. To really believe them would mean acting straightforwardly and spontaneously as if they were true. It would require being confident with every pore of our being that any friend of Jesus is far better off dead. It would be to rejoice, in the midst of our parting sorrows, over the indescribably greater well-being of our loved one who has moved on “further up and further into” the greatness of God and his world. Jesus quite reasonably said to his closest friends, “If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
Jesus’ attitude toward death is frankly quite cavalier. Here he is, himself dying, and a wretched man dying along with Jesus recognizes him for who he is. The man asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his place of power, his kingdom. Jesus replies, “You can be sure that this very day you will be with me in Paradise.” Now “paradise” was understood as a very good place to be, a place of life and fullness.
This statement goes along with Jesus’ declaration in John 8 that those who receive his word will never see, never taste, death (vv. 51, 53). That is to say, they will never experience what human beings normally expect is going to happen to them. And again Jesus says at the tomb of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (11:25–26). It was the shared understanding of the Christians of the first generation that Jesus in his person had destroyed death (Hebrews 2:14–15 and 2 Timothy 1:10).
The central point of reference in all of this is Jesus, who lives on both sides of physical death: his as well as ours. “Because he lives . . . ,” the song realistically sings. So Paul, rich in experience of Jesus beyond death, says confidently, “While we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord . . . and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). He had glimpsed through his own experiences the world where the dying thief had gone to meet Jesus, without benefit of resurrection.
When Paul tells the Philippians that he was “hard pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; and yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake,” and “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (1:22-24, 21), he is expressing an unstrained, easy confidence about the continuity of his life and person that was founded on his experiences of the world of God and of the place of Jesus in it. His experiences made it real for him and made it easy and natural for him to act as if Jesus and his kingdom were the enduring reality for the enduring life of those in Jesus’ care.
It is assurance of the continuity of our lives under God and in this universe with him that liberates us from the sorrow of those “who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). And it is on precisely this point that James Smith’s wonderful story helps us. The biblical and theological content is quite solid—though it will be surprising to many who do not put concrete content and image and action into their reading of the Bible and their theological reflection. It must be surprising if it is to address the need. And the need is great—appalling, when you observe how devout Christians suffer in the face of physical death. The reason Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35) was certainly because of the misery imposed upon humanity by failure to vividly see the reality of undying life in God—a misery overwhelmingly exemplified in the scene surrounding him at the moment.
It is also important that the treatment be with a light touch—gentle and slyly humorous. Yet, at the same time, deeply touching, intelligent, and realistic. We are all familiar with this in the writings of C. S. Lewis and others. James Smith has achieved this fine combination of qualities. As a result, you experience the writing as you would any outstanding literary work. Enjoy it. Its effects for making real through imagination the truth and reality now of life beyond physical death will take care of themselves. The “assurance of the continuity of our lives under God and in this universe with him” will creep into your soul. The Word and the Spirit will enter with the story. We are able to see the truths of Scripture in a way that grips us, strengthens us, directs us in life, and lifts the burden of pain and meaninglessness imposed upon those unable to think concretely about the course of our lives as unceasing spiritual beings in God’s rich universe. Paradise is now in session.
Chapter One
IWAS SITTING IN MY CAR in a long line at a Massachusetts toll booth. Rain drizzled on my windshield as my car came to a dead stop. I glanced down at the brochure lying on the passenger seat and picked it up with my right hand. “St. Stephen Episcopal Monastery.” Below the title was a glossy picture of an old stone building beside a river. “A place to rest, a place to grow spiritually, a place to find stillness. Directed or private retreats available.” I wanted to get out of this line and turn back, but I was trapped by the crush of cars inching along. My pastor had given me the brochure a month ago.
“You need to take some time away, Tim. You need to deal with your grief,” he said. He was right. But the last place I wanted to go was some smoke-and-mirrors religious retreat center.
I glanced at my watch. It was 11:11 a.m. when my old Volvo passed out of the ordinary world, through the stone gateway, and onto the gravel driveway of the monastery. The stone building looked like a fortress. I passed under the archway entrance, looked back at my car one last time, turned, and kept moving forward. The reception area was completely silent. Wooden paneling covered the walls. The front desk was occupied by a woman with white hair and cat-eye glasses. She looked up from her book and said, “May I help you?”
“Yes, I hope so. I am here for a private retreat. My name is Tim Hudson,” I said, reaching out my hand to shake hers.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Hudson.” Her voice was cultivated, with a slight New England accent. “Are you the Tim Hudson who writes books?”
“Well, I have written a few—”
“How lovely to meet you. I’ve read some of your books. I just finished God’s on Your Side last week. I enjoyed it very much. My sister in Seattle heard you speak there three years ago, and she gave me one of your books for Christmas last year. Since then I have read them all. It is an honor to have you here. Will you be teaching while you are here?”
“No, I am here for . . . I just need some time to . . .”
“Recharge the spiritual batteries?” she said as she made a small notation on an index card.
“You could say that. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“My name is Virginia. It’s so nice to meet you. Well, you have certainly come to a beautiful place. Most of the rooms have a lovely view of the river. We have some enchanting gardens, or you can stroll up and down the banks—as long as you stay on the grounds! Which reminds me, if you would give me your car keys, I will have one of the brothers move your car to the lot in the back.”
I took my keys out of my pocket and stared at them for a moment before handing them to her.
“It looks like you have requested a five-day silent retreat, is that correct?” she said while placing my keys on a hook behind her desk.
“Yes.”
“Very well. The meals are at 8:00 a.m., 12:00, and 5:00 p.m., and everyone is silent except the reader. One of the brothers will be reading from the Bible or from some devotional book. Matins is at 6:30 a.m., morning prayer is at 9:00 a.m., afternoon prayers are at 3:00 p.m., and compline is at 9:00 p.m. Your meeting with your spiritual director is every afternoon at 2:00 with Brother Taylor.”
“I am sorry, what did you say?” I asked.
“Your meeting with your spiritual director is—”
“But I didn’t request a spiritual director.”
“Oh, I know. It is a part of the silent retreat. No extra charge. Of course, you don’t have to go, but we highly recommend it. Five days is a long time in solitude. And besides, we all need a little help on our journey now and then.”
“I suppose you’re right. Right now I just need to rest a bit.”
“Your room is number 322. It is up those stairs on your left. Brother Taylor will meet with you in the study, which is room 111, down that hallway.”
The stairs, like most of the building, were made of stone. My room—my cell, as they called it—was twelve feet by six feet. “Now I know why they call it a cell,” I mumbled to myself as I stood in the doorway. The sparse room consisted of a single bed, a small desk with a wooden chair, and a wardrobe. I put my suitcase down and walked to the window. I lifted up the shade to find myself staring at a brick wall. Some view, I thought. Just my luck—I get to look at a brick wall for five days. I lay down on the bed in my room without a view and quickly fell asleep.
Without an alarm I awoke at a quarter to two. I ambled down the stairs and through the hallway looking for room 111, which was at the very end. I knocked on the door and heard a voice say, “One minute, please.” Soon the door opened and before me stood a man in his early forties, not much older than me.
“I am Brother Taylor. C’mon on in. You must be Tim.”
“Yes, I am,” I said as I walked into a study with all four walls covered with books. “Are all these yours?”
“No, we share this study. These belong to the monastery. We give up all of our possessions when we join.”
“Oh, right.”
“Have a seat, Tim,” he said, pointing to an overstuffed chair. He sat down in a chair across from me.
Even seated, he was an imposing figure. He wasn’t tall, but he had the build of a wrestler, and despite his age his hair was thick though gray. What sort of man, I wondered, becomes a monk? While watching him watching me, I noticed that beneath his cowl he was wearing jogging shoes and sweatpants. He caught my eye as I glanced at the frayed cuffs of his sweatpants, and the corners of his mouth twitched. I realized that he was smiling. I broke the silence when I could not stand it anymore and stammered out the first thing I could think of. “This is a lovely place.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
It was so quiet I could hear my watch ticking.
“It took me about five hours to get here. I came from Connecticut. I, uh, am a writer.”
“Oh really, what kinds of books do you write?” he asked, leaning forward with a curious smile.
“You didn’t know I was a writer?”
“No. I’m sorry. Should I?”
“No. I mean, not really. I write spiritual books.”
Once again we sat in silence. He was clearly unimpressed that I was a writer. He sat with his hands folded in his lap and continued to stare at me. The silence was unnerving. Finally he asked, “How would you describe your spiritual life right now, Tim?”
“Um, it’s okay, I guess. I could use a little rest.”
“How would you describe your relationship with God?”
“Gee, isn’t that a little personal? Couldn’t we talk about the weather for a few minutes before you peer into my soul?”
“I am not sure we have that kind of time.”
“I have five days here. I have lots of time.”
“Do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Tim, you must have come here for a reason. People don’t usually take five days of their lives to come and stay with us for no reason. Let me ask it another way. What is hurting you?”
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath, “you could say that I have become a hypocrite.” I could no longer make eye contact. I stared out the window.
“How so?”
“I am having trouble believing the things I have written.”
“What have you written?”
“I wrote a book about how God is good. I tell people to turn their lives over to God. I write about how God is fair and merciful and just. It’s just . . .”
“Just what?”
“I don’t believe it anymore.”
“Believe what?”
“That God is . . . good.”
“Why is that?”
I looked down at my shoes and took a deep breath.
“Because God is not good,” I blurted out. My face instantly flushed with rage.
“Not good?”
I closed my eyes and took another deep breath. My heart began to race. The anger I was about to unleash had been kept deep inside my heart, never spoken to anyone, not even to myself.
“Four years ago my wife and I were so excited when we got the news that she was pregnant with a little girl. We already had a bright, healthy four-year-old boy, and now we were having a girl. I had written some books, and my career seemed to be on the rise. My life could not have been better—a great wife, a great boy, a great career, and now a baby girl. Life was perfect. Then, a few weeks before our daughter was to have been born, the doctor noticed that Rachel had not been gaining weight. She asked for her to have a sonogram, just to make sure everything was all right. During that sonogram they noticed that the baby had a cleft lip and a cluster of other defects. They suspected that the baby had a rare chromosomal disorder and would likely die during her birth. We were told by the doctors to plan her funeral—before she was even born. Can you imagine that? We spent months decorating her room, painting it pink and assembling her crib, and now we were told to be prepared for her to die in the delivery room.”
I covered my face with my hands, ashamed of the tears that were now running down my cheeks. Brother Taylor walked to my chair, knelt beside me, and gently put his arm around me.
“I am sorry, Tim.” He handed me a tissue and returned to his chair. He closed his eyes, as if he were starting to pray. We sat together for a few minutes in silence. I then took a deep breath and resumed.
“Well, she didn’t die. She was born with a number of birth defects, and we did all we could to help her survive. We flew her to New York for open-heart surgery, which seemed to help. We just kept hoping and praying, asking God for a miracle. She couldn’t feed herself, so we fed her through a feeding tube in her stomach. She had around-the-clock medical care from my wife. For the next two years we spent more time in the hospital than at home. We slept on hard floors and prayed and prayed that God would heal her. She managed to outlive all of the doctors’ prognoses—none of them thought she would live to the age of two.”
I stopped for a moment and took another deep breath.
“We managed pretty well, despite the fact that our home was filled with medical equipment, and once a month we would have to go back into the hospital for more surgery. When she was just a year and a half we were hit with the second blow. One of my closest friends, a committed Christian who served God far beyond what I have done, was killed in a car accident. He lived in our attic apartment for two years. I loved him like a brother. He was a songwriter, and he had written a beautiful song for our daughter, Madison, because he was so moved by her. He was only forty; he was too young to die. He spent his life giving glory to God and serving the poor, and then he died on the pavement of a rain-soaked highway. How could God have taken him? He was one of the most faithful people I ever met. Countless people were moved by his music. Then suddenly he was gone.”
We both sat in silence for a few minutes. I knew the next part would be difficult to tell.
“That’s not all. Six months after my friend Wayne died, Madison also died. Catch this—after a routine operation, when she seemed to be fine, she suddenly went into a coma and died within forty-eight hours.”
Suddenly the memory of that day flooded my mind. I remembered looking out from the third-floor window of the hospital room. The traffic below flowed on as if nothing had happened. The cars moved and stopped and pulled into fast-food restaurants or parking lots. People were crossing the street, talking and laughing. I thought, Don’t they know what just happened? How can they not know? How can they go on living as if nothing has happened? I leaned against the window pane as tears ran from my cheek to the glass and down, like quiet rain.
“Would you like to hold her one last time?” the nurse asked. I sat down in a chair, preparing for someone to hand me my daughter, as I had done a thousand times, but this time would be the last. The nurse offered her lifeless body to me, and I cradled her in my arms. She was still warm. She felt alive, but she was gone from that little body. Forty minutes ago the doctors were trying to keep her alive, applying electric shock to her heart with tiny paddles. We stared at the heart monitor. It stopped and started several times. It was as if she were being pulled away from me but trying to stay. After a while I could see her body was tired. I leaned in and whispered into her ear, “It’s okay, sweet girl, you put up a good fight, you go on with the angels. Daddy will see you soon.” My body began to tremble, so much that her bed started to shake. The heart monitor stopped and never came back on.
I felt my pulse quickening from the memory. The anger began to well up in my throat. I stood up and shouted, “Where was God, Brother Taylor? I was there! Where was he?”
He didn’t answer my question. He closed his eyes as if he were praying. I saw a tear forming in the corner of his eye.
“For two years now I’ve tried to go on as if everything was still okay—you know, ‘God’s in heaven and all’s right in the world,’ but just a year after Madison died, my mother died of a heart attack. She was seventy, but she was in good health. She ate right and was active, and suddenly she was gone. She was my North Star. No matter where I was or what I was going through, I could navigate my life because of her. She was my constant in the midst of the chaos. Now that she’s gone, I’m completely disoriented. Within three years I’ve lost my dear friend, my daughter, and my mother—three people who occupy a special place in my heart. I know people die. I know that we are all going to die eventually. It’s just . . .”
“Just what, Tim?”
“It’s just . . . that it seems so unfair,” I finished lamely, knowing I sounded exactly like a discontented schoolboy.
“What’s unfair?”
In a rush of anger, my words tumbled out, “I tried hard to please God, to do what is right. I know I am not perfect, not even close, but I am on God’s team, for heaven’s sake! I am one of God’s friends. I mean, I see these horrible parents—drug-addicted, abusive parents—with healthy kids. Why did we have to have a child born with some rare disorder? Why, Brother Taylor? Why? Why did my friend Wayne die? Why did my mother die so soon? I am sick of funerals!”
He didn’t bother to answer my questions. He simply sat there, looking at me.
“Thank you for sharing that with me, Tim. I will be praying for you. Let’s meet again tomorrow.”
“What? That’s all you have to say? I pour my guts out, and you just say, ‘See you tomorrow’? C’mon, Brother Taylor, you gotta give me more than that. I am about to abandon my faith. I need your help.”
“You need to be silent, Tim, and you have come to the right place. What you need to do is relax and be still for a while. I want you to let go of your need to be in control.”
“Who said I have a need to be in control?”
“Who doesn’t, Tim?”
“Well . . . yeah.” We sat there, in silence. Irritated, I shifted position, crossed and uncrossed my arms, and again, feeling a bit like a schoolboy now caught in the principal’s office. “But . . .”
“Relax, Tim.”
“What am I supposed to do for the next twenty-four hours?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? My assignment is to do nothing.”
“That is precisely what you need to do. Don’t do anything that accomplishes something. Take a walk by the river. Sit in the garden. Breathe the air. Slow down. Become present where you are. See you tomorrow, Tim. I will be praying for you. God bless.”
Chapter Two
IHOPE YOU CAN FIND whatever it is you are missing.”
The cell had not gotten any larger in my absence. Five days in this room was going to be the death of me. I lay down on the bed and fell asleep again. The dinner bell woke me just before 5:00 p.m. I walked to the front desk where Virginia waved to me and pointed to the door where the brothers ate their common meals, called the refectory. There were plates and cups and utensils along the wall and a large pot of soup on a butcher block. A variety of uncooked vegetables rounded out this fine meal. I will lose five pounds at this place, I thought. I noticed that all of the monks were thin except one. He must be sneaking Snickers when no one is looking, I thought with a twinge of malice. Then I realized that, if I were stuck here, I would probably do the same.
I sat at the silent table and slowly began eating my bean soup and raw carrots. To my surprise, it actually tasted pretty good, kind of like when you are camping and even Spam is something to salivate over. One of the brothers was reading something from the old Scottish writer George MacDonald as the rest of us quietly slurped and listened. One of the brothers motioned for me to pass the salt, and when I handed it to him, he smiled and nodded. Most of what was read passed over me unattended, but the reader caught my attention with “Begin to love as God loves, and thy grief will assuage; but for comfort wait His time. What He will do for thee, He only knows. It may be thou wilt never know what He will do, but only what He has done. It was too good for thee to know save by receiving it. The moment thou art capable of it, thine it will be.”
Grief, I thought, does not assuage. Mine has not diminished or healed. I wondered silently if anyone in the room had suffered through what I had. I glanced at Brother Taylor, sipping his soup. I wondered, Does he know about disappointment with God? Or has his life been sheltered and cloistered, reading his dusty books and praying five times a day, unaware of the pain outside these walls?
The silence of the meal was peaceful. It was nice not to have to make conversation, to be clever or seem interested. We just ate. It was strange to do something as intimate as sharing a meal with people but yet not speak to one another. Somehow I felt a sense of belonging even though I had not spoken a word or been spoken to.
I retired to my room and sat there in silence for three hours. Several times I got up and paced the floor like a caged animal. I positioned my chair in front of the window and stared at the bricks. A bell rang, which summoned us to the chapel to participate in what they called “compline,” the final service of the day. I didn’t feel like praising God or even praying, but I wanted out of my cell. The monks chanted a number of psalms, mixed with some prayers and passages from the New Testament selected for each day of the year. The chapel was more ornate than I, as a Methodist, was used to. After a few minutes I got comfortable with the pageantry. The gold and silver and stained glass, along with the smell of incense, seemed to usher me out of ordinary time and space. The sound of the monks chanting began to move me and made the back of my throat hurt from the ache of unshed tears.
We retired in silence after the service. I went back to my cell. I desperately wanted to speak to someone I knew and loved. I grabbed my cell phone out of my suitcase and went outside.
“Honey, it’s me.”
“You made it all right?”
“No problem.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s really pretty here. Kind of medieval in some ways. My room is the size of a closet, the food is meager, and I have a lovely view of a brick wall. But the people seem nice.”
“Do you think you can handle five days of silence?”
“I don’t know. Jonah survived three days in the belly of a whale, so I suppose I can survive five days in a Massachusetts monastery with a bunch of monks. I know how crazy this all seems. It isn’t like me. I mean me, at a monastery, hoping, against better judgment, that somehow, somehow—” but I stopped. “Anyway, honey, I really appreciate the fact that you have been so supportive about this whole retreat business.”
I heard her sigh, so I tried to lighten the mood. “Oh, and catch this, they assigned me a spiritual director, but I am not too sure about him. He’s a jogger.”
“What?”
“He’s a jogger. I am not kidding. Underneath his cowl he was wearing a pair of jogging pants and running shoes. I was hoping for a chubby old man with a long, white beard; instead I got the ‘jogging monk.’ Imagine that. Me, with a runaway monk. But he seems all right.”
“I just hope . . .”
“What?”
“I just hope you can find whatever it is you are missing. It has been hard lately, Tim. Especially watching you suffer. I know you are hurting inside. I hope this helps.”
“It will, I think. You are an angel for letting me come here. I don’t know if I will find anything while I am here, but there is a good chance I’ll lose a few pounds, which won’t hurt.”
