Cell group session: Genesis 4 - The Story of Cain and Abel

I attended my church cell group last Friday evening. It was a combined cell group session consisting of the people from the cell group I usually attend together with another cell group comprising of people slightly older than those in my cell group. The people in the slightly older cell group led the cell group session, which includes the opening song worship session and the bible study session.

The group was going through the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. As the story goes, Abel and Cain each brought their respective offerings to God, and God looked with favour on Abel and his offering but not on Cain and his offering.

The first discussion question for the session was “how to respond to someone who feels that God isn’t present”. I am not sure or can’t remember how this discussion question tie in with the Cain and Abel story. Perhaps it was about the way Cain was feeling, or maybe it was a separate discussion of its own altogether.

The answer that was provided on that was that we shouldn’t trust out emotions, but that we should believe and know with certainty based on reading the word of God from the bible, and gain faith from the partaking of the sacrament at Holy Communion, and to continue to go to church. A group member brought out the point that Pastors might also feel the same way at certain points in their life, but he admires that Pastors continue to be able to keep going and ministering, and we should be inspired to do the same.

The next question of the discussion was “What does it mean to say God has “found favour with someone?” The passage which was read in relation to that was Luke 1:30-31 where Mary, the mother of Jesus was told by an angel that she has found favour with God and will give conceive and give birth to Jesus. The commentary that was provided on this was that favour is unmerited grace from God. What is the reason that God found favour with Abel and his offering and not Cain and his offering? The passage referred to in relation to this question was Hebrew 11:4 – “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings.” 

Does the notion that God found favour with Abel due to his faith contradict the notion that favour is unmerited grace? A cell group member asked that question, and the discussion leader added futher commentary which he had initially intended not to go into about how there are two types of favour, one merited and the other unmerited. The merited ones include the likes of those mentioned in Psalms 147:11 where the psalmist writes, "The Lord favours those who fear Him, those who wait for His lovingkindess", Proverbs 3:3-4 where the author, presumably King Solomon states "Do not let kindness and truth leave you: bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God and man", and Proverbs 8:32-35 - "Blessed is the man who listens to me [wisdom], watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts. For he who finds me finds life and obtains favour from the Lord." The unmerited kind of favour typically involves those of the salvific kind where Jesus died on the cross to redeem us of our sins, as in Ephesians 2:5-9. So apparently, the favour that Abel received from God was of the merited kind.

The commentary that was delivered by the discussion leader from the pastor was that “we receive faith as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Abel believed in God and in the promise of the Messiah, so he was righteous by faith. Cain clearly did not trust in God, so we can conclude that he had rejected God’s gift of faith. Abel brought his offering in faith, knowing God would be pleased with it. Cain did not approach God in faith. Perhaps he even thought his offering would please God in and of itself. The story of Cain and Abel helps us see clearly that God desires us to trust in Him and bring our offerings in faith rather than trusting in our own works to please God.”

I brought up a point which seemed to annoy one of the older members there. I asked whether we as Christians might be too quick to pour judgment upon Cain for his shortcomings when God might not have judged Cain as harshly as we would. Just because Cain might not have offered his offering with faith or as much faith as his brother doesn’t necessarily mean he did not trust in God or rejected God’s gift of faith etc. After all, in the passage, God’s response to Cain thereafter was not one of condemnation, but a warning, or even a word of counsel to Cain to struggle against the temptation to sin. So it seems to suggest that there was a possibility that Cain could have very well stayed off the wrong path, though in retrospect and from what we know further down the story, he failed. Moreover, wouldn't the fact that Cain was angry that God had not shown favour to him or his offering suggest that he took his offering seriously, or had hoped to please God with his offering? Borrowing from my own work experience in the legal industry, I know how disappointing it can be to do my best at my work and submit it to the Boss, only to be told that I had done a slipshod job or not put in due effort into the task.

The older member said that it can be taken as given that Cain had these offending thoughts or attitudes towards God given that he killed his brother which we all know later in the story.

I said that if indeed Cain was guilty of thinking of his offering being pleasing to God in and of itself, many of us Christians would probably be guilty of such thinking too. Yet it seemed like the characterization of Cain that was being imputed to him based on the commentary of the bible study session was rather harsh as to be denunciatory of him. I could have perhaps have made my point a lot more tactfully or diplomatically, but I asked, perhaps somewhat rhetorically, whether we as Christians sometimes are overly quick to come up a whole list of crimes to indict someone for a relatively minor infraction in our perceived need to justify God’s disapproval of that person. God may very well not have judged that person as harshly as we have. In the instance of Cain, Cain might have fallen short of the required standards for making a desirable offering, but had he committed such a transgression as to be tantamount of rejecting God’s gift of faith and perhaps God altogether? I don’t think it is clear from the passage that he did, which was why God cautioned Cain that sin was crouching at his door and desired to have him, but he must rule over it. It implies that Cain had not gone too far down the road yet in his error as to be beyond salvation.

Another cell group member asked whether Cain could have been forgiven for his sin of murdering Abel? That group member felt that Cain did show remorse in what Cain said in Genesis 4:13-14 – “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” I drew parallels of this with Judas Iscariot, who in Matthew 27 expressed remorse after betraying Jesus, yet did not take the critical step of asking for forgiveness. The cell group member who had gotten annoyed with me earlier felt that there was no actual remorse or contrition on the part of Cain. He cited the passage of 2 Samuel 12 where David said “I have sinned against the Lord” as being exemplary of what a remorseful attitude that merits forgiveness entails. I don’t want to sidetrack the discussion here by asking how David’s remarks was in any way different from that of Achan's in Joshua 7:20, who despite making the same remark as David, was nevertheless stoned to death. What I am more interested in is the point that Cain showed at least remorse, which even though it may not have measured up to some required standard required for forgiveness, is nevertheless present. Shouldn't that at least count for something? A cell group member pointed out that Cain may not have been able to ask God for forgiveness then since Jesus had not yet done his salvific work on earth by dying on the cross, but could Cain have at least done some of the sacrificial rituals prescribed in the old testament to achieve the same? Perhaps he did so, but we can never know. Then again, the animal sacrificial rituals for penance of sins was probably not even existent during the time of Cain and Abel.

Thoughts about addressing unbelief of others, and asking God to help with unbelief

At a Christian fellowship group meet today at school, a member leading the session went through the passage of Psalms 88 and Mark 9:14-29 where Jesus healed a boy with an evil spirit. The member leading the session talked about how the Psalmist in Psalms 88 experienced moments of doubts about God in his hardship, so much so that he made rather seemingly irreverent remarks about God in his lament that might seem blasphemous in nature. The member talked about how it is possible for fellow believers to experience similar doubts about God, and that quite often, such doubts go suppressed in Christian settings, and it is quite convenient for fellow Christians to push away such doubts from a fellow Christian because of their discomfort with handling it. The member referred to the Mark passage, and made the point that at times, what we can do about our doubts is to ask God to help us with our unbelief.

This session resonated with me because I have been experiencing some grave doubts about my faith in recent years given my hardships in life. And I can quite identify with the point made by the member that such sentiments are not too well accommodated in Christian settings at times. But to be fair, I am not sure what would be the right way to address such sentiments as well. There are Christians I know who would approach this by boldly telling the doubting person that he should just trust God and not doubt. Some other Christians would just try to allow the doubting person to talk out his sentiments without offering too much comments. Then there are those Christians who would try to afford an explanation, or some wisdom to the doubting person. For me, I will tell the doubting person that I too have similar doubts, but that I think it is okay to doubt, and that God is bigger than to be upset at our doubts, but that we should also try to give God the benefit of the doubt. I suppose different people may respond differently to different approaches, so I wouldn’t want to overly criticize any of the different approaches. But there are some which I find myself adverse to, so much so that I prefer not to relay my doubts to that Christian person whom I know would simply belittle my doubts.

Where I am with my own doubts right now, I think I am at the point where I think that there is a distinct possibility that God does not exist. It seems to me that he is virtually absent from the world, or from my life at least. Regarding the point made by the member that we can ask God to help us with our unbelief, I wonder to myself why I should even ask God to help me with my unbelief when it is quite possible that God does not exist in the first place. I guess my unbelief is the one talking there, rather than the believing part of me. I once watched a video featuring a talking session amongst four prominent atheists who are colloquially known as the Four Horsemen of Atheism– Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. In that dialogue amongst the four individuals, they talked about why believers seem so persistent in their belief in God. Christopher Hitchens made the point that one of the chief reasons which he identifies for persistence of belief is the act of the believer to ask God to help him with his unbelief. I guess from an atheist point of view, the asking for God’s help with unbelief is a rut which prevents the believer from embracing his unbelief and coming to the truth of atheism. Where I am at right now, I am pretty inundated by unbelief so much so that I don’t even want to ask God to help me with my unbelief. I tell God that if he wants to help me with my unbelief, he should remove my hardships in life, rather than demand my psychological attitude of belief towards him. I am not sure how God, if he does exist, will respond to my attitude towards him. I told the group that I think that God helps us with our unbelief even if we do not ask for it. Honestly though, I am not sure. But if there is any reason why I still continue believing in God, it is that I hope he would do something to alleviate me of my hardships in life.

Comparative Religious study - Buddhism

I joined the girls’ cell group at my church last Friday evening. I have been joining the girls cell group session since the start of the year because the guys’ discipleship group which I am in hasn’t been meeting regularly, and I was interested to get to know the girls around in my church a little better. Frankly, I find the gender segregation for cell group for youths around the same age group at my church somewhat inane. It has been that way since I was in secondary school because a youth leader who was at the church back then felt that this was the way in which the respective cell groups should be organized. I can partly understand the reason that gender segregation would allow for group members to talk about things that are personal to the respective gender group, but I thought it was unhealthy in the sense that it build barriers in socializing members of the opposite genders. Anyway, the church scene has changed somewhat in the passing years, along with the leaderhip in the church youth group. It is more autonomous now, and considering that most youths of yesteryears are now in their 20’s, I thought that there is somewhat more prerogative for individuals to choose who they want to socialize with at church.

The girls’ cell group was going through the second part of their comparative religions study on Buddhism. I had missed the study on the first part. They had previously went though comparative religious sessions on other religions like Islam and Hinduism. Typically, the session would seek to teach the basic tenets about the respective religion, and highlight inadequacies or unsatisfying aspects of the religion according to the view of the cell group leader.

The study session touched upon the concept of Nirvana in Buddhism. The handout prepared by the cell group leader defined Nirvana as the cessation of all conditioned thoughts and desire which are purportedly the root of suffering. It then went on to highlight the moral contradiction in the Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana by quoting from an excerpt from David Johnsons’ A Reasoned Look at Asian Religions:

“The moral contradiction is precisely this : A person should want to get saved from desire or selfishness. But wanting to save oneself is just as selfish as any other act for selfish ends. If a person wants enlightenment, he still wants. And wanting, desiring, is the very fault which prevents enlightenment.”

I have never really understood this aspect of Nirvana in Buddhism. It seems to me like a quasi-mythological concept in an otherwise philosophical and secular religion. Why does Buddhism speak of ‘entering Nirvana’, as if Nirvana is some place like the Christian Heaven, when it has been defined by some at least that it is simply a cessation of desire? I am also somewhat skeptical of the critic provided in the handout about the moral contradiction of Nirvana. For one, it appeals to me as somewhat nit-picky, or overly-semantic. So the wish to end desire is also a desire, therefore the contradiction. It is quite similar to another critique levied by some on relativism – “The proposition that everything is relative is an absolute, therefore the contradiction.” I used to be quite impressed with such identification of contradiction by virtue of self-reference, but I am less impressed now because I think that such critiques assume that the proposition must be treated as making an absolute statement. It can be dealt with if the proposition is qualified, such as qualifying Nirvana as being the aim to end all unnecessary desires instead of all desires, or such as qualifying that there are some things which are relative in nature, and others which are absolute. That way, there is no contradiction.

I just don’t wish to dismiss possible merits to the propositions of other religion or ideas simply on the pretext of some logical fallacy which seems trivial to me. And I think that Buddhism might have its valuable insights to offer if we don’t completely dismiss it for some of its radical views. On the one hand, I think it is radical that Buddhism suggests that all suffering is an illusion. I don’t think such philosophy is empathetic to those who are truly suffering. However, I think that Buddhism may be somewhat instructive when it talks about how suffering is a matter of perception. Well, I think that suffering is in someways due to how an individual perceives it. For example, two individuals may be suffering from the same illness or misfortune, but one is more affected by it than another. I think that it helps to have a good attitude and a healthy sense of optimism towards dealing with one’s misfortune or suffering.

What makes God God?

I went for my church cell group meeting this afternoon. My church cell group rarely meet up these days because everyone is tied down to their respective commitments and issues, but I decided that I shall take some initiative to get people together since I am feeling a little better these days. Today’s turn-out at cell group was small, and we had sharing session with one another.

A cell group member that I shall call Jim was giving something like a mini-sermon to a fellow cell group member who is new to the Christian faith. Jim was saying that he had friends who thought that Jesus’ love for humanity by dying himself is not all that superior because they might choose to die as well if their death saved other people. Jim said that God’s love is different from just the death of a human being to save others because God chose to come down to earth to be a human being, even though he was God, and that he died for the undeserving people like us who are sinners. The new member said at the end of Jim’s talk that he would like to read more of the bible to find out about what Jim said.

I didn’t say anything while Jim was giving his evangelical sermon, because I didn’t want to turn the session into a pedantic theological debate; certainly not when there is a new Christian around where I can think that there is a greater purpose to help him in his faith. But since I am with myself now blogging this post, I shall write about the thoughts I have regarding what Jim said.

What Jim said is not something that I would find unfamiliar amongst Christians of my evangelistical circles. They are trying to draw out God’s superiority compared to human beings, even on traits such as love. But I am at the point of time in my life where I am full of doubts of God’s love, and am somewhat cynical and skeptical about some of these assertions made by fellow Christians. Why should God be considered superior in his expression of love just because he is God when he choose to die for humanity? It is not a fair evaluation in my opinion, because someone may choose a similar action if he or she were God as well. Is it unthinkable to ask the question what one would do if he or she were placed in God’s position? Which brings me to my second point of reflection – What makes God God? I wonder whether God asks such a question to himself – “Why am I God instead of something else?” My point is that we as human beings find ourselves bornt into an existence as human beings, not by our will, but simply as how reality would have it. Isn’t God subject to such a mystery of his own existence as well? That he finds himself a superior spiritual entity by virtue of simply ‘being’.

I encountered a matchmaking question on a dating website which is relevant to the point I made above.  That question asks what you would do if one day, God were to tell you that he would like to trade position with you as a human being for a day because he needs to be a human for some reason or another. Would you give ‘God’ his position back after the day has ended? There are some really interesting multiple choice responses that you can choose to this question. One such answer is “Yes, because I have no right to usurp the position of God.” Another is “No, I would make an awesome God.” Yet another is “No, I probably can’t do much worse as a God anyway.”

I have always wished that God was more interventionistic in solving the ills of the world and in my life, but I admit that I don’t really know whether such actions would necessarily be good. I believe that there is a movie with a similar theme about playing God titled Bruce Almighty starring Jim Carrey. The storyline is about a man who gets to play God by God. I haven’t watched it yet, but I have read a synopsis on it, and it seems to feature a moral of the story that one might make things worse rather than better even though one thinks he is using his power as God for the better. And there is that oft quoted pronouncement by Lord Acton that “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I wonder whether that applies to someone as God as well. Yet, I also wonder sometimes, at the risk of sounding heretical, whether I can do some things for the world better than God if I were in his position.

Comparative understanding of Islam to the Christian religion

The church discipleship group which I attended yesterday was going through a comparative religious study on Islam. The focus of the study was on Islam’s understanding of the resurrection of Christ.

The differences highlighted by the discipleship group leader about Islam in regards to Jesus Christ is that Islam teaches in the Qur’an that Jesus is only a prophet and not divine, and that Jesus was not crucified, but it was merely made to appear so, while Allah raised Jesus to heaven.

The material that the discipleship group leader had prepared then went on to the question on whether the Bible or the Qur’an was more reliable. The answer given was that the Bible was more reliable because it was written down within the first generation of the events recorded, while the eyewitnesses were still alive, as compared to the Qur’an, written over 600 years after the events with no independent, historical source of information. An excerpt from William Lane Craig’s article “Who is the Real Jesus : The Jesus of the Bible or The Jesus of the Qur’an?” was presented in the material, which states that “In fact, the Qur’an contains demonstrably legendary stories about Jesus which evolved during the centuries after his death….For example, the Qur’an mentions the story – borrowed from the legendary forgery entitled The Infancy Gospel of Thomas – of how the boy Jesus made a bird out of clay and then made it come to life. Such stories are fictional.”

The material also cites historical evidences other than the bible which corroborates with the account of Jesus crucifixion, such as the Jewish historian Josephus reference to Jesus’ condemnation to the cross by Pilate in Testimonium Flavianum, Roman senator and historian Tacitus reference to Jesus in his Annals, and Greek satirist Lucian’s scornful remark of Christ in The Death of Peregrine. One objection that I have heard raised by counter-apologists is whether these other sources qualify as independent attestations of the gospel narrative, since they were written decades after the crucifixion, and might have been derived from the same sources used for the gospels

The session also discusses about the understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Islam rejects the Christian belief of God as existing in three persons. The material attempts to explain the idea of the Trinity with William Lane Craig’s description of God as a soul endowed with three complete sets of rational cognitive faculties, each sufficient for personhood. The discipleship group leader tried to explain this using the analogy of three different people in a company holding the similar position of CEO and being able to sign off with such a title. Another member in the discipleship group attempted to explain the idea of the trinity with an analogy of different descriptions given of a three-dimensional object from different perspectives. According to her, there exists a fourth dimension not comprehensible by human mind where God can exist in separate rational forms but maintain the same essence. Another discipleship group member casually cites the example of someone with the mental illness of bipolar, where two separate personalities exists in the same person, much like the story of Jerkyll and Hyde. For me, I find it easier to understand the idea of the Trinity as simply one rational faculty controlling three persons, much like how a puppet master controls multiple puppets, although I reckon that such an idea of the trinity would run into problems explaining why Jesus would admit not having knowledge that belongs to God the Father, or why Jesus had to pray to God. Considering such difficulties of conceiving the idea of the Trinity, I can understand why Islam would reject this idea and why some Muslims would even label this as polytheistic.

I would like to present here the beliefs of a Jewish law professor on campus on how he understands the Christian religion in relation to his own Judaistic faith. This professor believes that Jesus is both the Messiah prophesied in Isaiah 53, but also the prophet described in Deuteronomy 13 whom God had warned the Israelites not to follow but to put to death. As such, the Christian religion is God’s way of reaching out to the gentiles, but is also a test of the Jews to remain faithful to their Judaistic roots and not be led astray by other beliefs. I wonder whether such a pluralistic theology explaining Judaism and Christianity as being God’s different ways of reaching out to different people can also encompass Islam.

Discipleship Group – Where is God when it hurts by Philip Yancey

My discipleship group today explored the topic on suffering. We used as materials the book by Philip Yancey titled ‘Where is God when it hurts’. We talked about the various scenarios of sufferings that exist in the world, from relatively small ones like a relationship breakup, to large ones like suffering from cancer. One of the questions from the material was whether one’s witness of suffering, be it personal or that of friends’ or relatives’, has made one conscious of a different set of values in life. One thing that our discipleship group agreed upon is the success-oriented and materialistic mindsets in Singapore’s culture. And sometimes, suffering puts all these things into perspective, that life and health is more important than success. I brought up the account of the late Dr Richard Teo who died of cancer when he was only 40 years old. His story was featured in the newspaper. He was a successful ophthalmologist, owning his private practice, a millionaire. He was in the prime of his life, and had just made a deal to buy a piece of land where he wanted to build his bungalow, when he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Before dying, he gave a speech about his thoughts on life, wealth, and success, and his reflections. I was thinking how dreadful it must have felt for him to be diagnosed with a terminal illness from out of the blue, with no apparent rhyme or reason. He was thinking about affairs in life, such as buying a house with the wealth he had accumulated, and had no inkling of thought in his mind that he should find himself struck by incurable cancer.

A member brought up the point about how he felt some form of suffering cannot find any suitable form of justification for. He talked about the example of the woman Fantine in Les Miserables who had to resort to prostitution in order to provide for her child, an act which many would consider immoral. He asked, how can God allow a person who had every intention to walk in an upright manner in life to have to resort to immorality in order to sustain herself? He says this doesn’t sit well with the promise in the bible to “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”(Matthew 6:33)

I have read that in the world of philosophy, the philosopher Alvin Platinga has convincingly explained away the logical problem of the problem of evil in what is called the free will defence. That is, the existence of evil is not logically incompatible with the existence of God. But the evidential problem of evil remains, given with the characterization of a good and loving God in Christian theodicy. And verses such as that above espousing the concept of divine providence and protection comes into question in the face of the existence of evil.

One description of an instance of suffering in the book was the experience of the holocaust for the Jews. There was this account by a man named Elie Wiesel who described his experience in his book titled ‘Night’. He was witnessing the German soldiers carrying out an execution, one of the victims being a young boy whom he described as having the face ‘of a sad little angel’. He heard someone behind him asked twice ‘Where is God now?’ And he heard a voice within him answer him, “Where is He? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows…”

Philip Yancey writes, “Wiesel lost his faith in God at that concentration camp. For him, God literally hung to death on the gallows, never to be resurrected. But in fact the image that Wiesel evokes so powerfully contains within it the answer to his question: Where was God? The voice within Elie Wiesel spoke truth: in a way, God did hang beside the young boy. God did not exempt even himself from human suffering. He too hung on a gallows, at Calvary, and that alone is what keeps me believing in a God of love.”

As a conclusion to the study, I referred to Philip Yancey’s words at page 172 – 174. “What can we do to help those who hurt? And who can help us when we suffer? I begin with some discouraging good news. The discouraging aspect is that I cannot give you a magic formula. There is nothing much you can say to help suffering people. Some of the brightest minds in history have explored every angle of the problem of pain, asking why people hurt, yet still we find ourselves stammering out the same questions, unrelieved. As I’ve mentioned, not even God attempted an explanation of cause or a rationale for suffering in his reply to Job. The great king David, the righteous man Job, and finally even the Son of God reacted to pain much the same way as we do. They recoiled from it, thought it horrible, did their best to alleviate it, and finally cried out to God in despair because of it. Personally, I find it discouraging that we can come up with no final, satisfying answer for people in pain.

And yet viewed in another way that nonanswer is surprisingly good news. When I have asked suffering people, “Who helped you?” not one person has mentioned a Ph,D from Yale Divinity School or a famous philosopher. The kingdom of suffering is a democracy, and we all stand in it or alongside it with nothing but our naked humanity. All of us have the same capacity to help, and that is good news.

No one can package or bottle “the appropriate response to suffering.” And words intended for everyone will almost always prove worthless for one individual person. If you go to the sufferers themselves and ask for helpful words, you may find discord. Some recall a friend who cheerily helped distract them from the illness, while others think such an approach insulting. Some want honest, straightforward confrontation; others find such discussion unbearably depressing.

In short, there is no magic cure for a person in pain. Mainly, such a person needs love, for love instinctively detects what is needed. Jean Vanier, founder of l’Arche movement, says it well: “Wounded people who have been broken by suffering and sickness ask for only one thing: a heart that loves and commits itself to them, a heart full of hope for them.”

In fact the answer to the question, “How do I help those who hurt?” is exactly the same as the answer to the question, “How do I love?” If you asked me for a Bible passage to teach you how to help suffering people, I would point to 1 Corinthians 13 and its eloquent depiction of love. That is what a suffering person needs: love, and not knowledge and wisdom. As is so often his pattern, God uses very ordinary people to bring about healing.

Nevertheless, love itself breaks down into specific and practical acts. We meet suffering people in every school, in every church, in every public building, as well as in every hospital. All of us will one day join them. As I’ve listened to what they have to say, I have come up with four “frontiers” where every suffering person will do battle: the frontiers of fear, helplessness, meaning, and hope. Our response to suffering depends largely on the outcome of our struggle in those frontiers.”

I suppose different people will find comfort in different outlooks and life philosophies. Some say, they shall take destiny into their own hand, whilst others reckon humbly with the boundaries of their personal limitations, and find solace in a higher power. I don’t know how much comfort religion gives people, and how it does so. Some people find a certain state of repose and serenity to their suffering, whilst others trudge through the entire journey tormented unremittingly by doubt and confusion. Different people respond differently to the predicament of suffering. Amidst the confusion, perhaps one can take hope that things would be better, in some way, and on some day, that there may be respite in the days in which one is living. Or that in less than a hundred years from now, life will be over and one will see no more of the painful afflictions to be. But while we are the living, to bear patiently with our afflictions, to shed a tear for the lost, and to help and comfort those in need.