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Play
the Ball Where the Monkey Drops It
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Excerpted from Play the Ball Where the Monkey Drops It:
Why We Suffer and How We Can Hope. (c) 2001 by Gregory
Knox Jones. Reprinted with permission of HarperSanFrancisco.
All rights reserved.
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"I need a huge favor," were
the first words out of Judy's mouth when I answered the telephone.
"Some friends of mine desperately need a minister."
Her friends,
a twenty-something couple, were experiencing every parent's dreaded
nightmare. Their seven-month-old child had died and Judy was calling
to ask if I could do the funeral.
Three
days later a stark image was etched into my mind forever. It was
the sight of these young parents carrying a tiny white casket to
a cavity in the earth. They appeared catatonic as they trudged through
the frozen grass, carrying their precious child for the final time.
Their feet were heavy, each step more arduous than the last, and
they kept wishing they would awaken from a sleepy stupor to discover
it was all a horrible dream. But this was no mere nightmare. Their
infant son was dead and they struggled to understand why this overwhelming
tragedy had struck them. As I said the final prayer and benediction,
the young mother and father filled the silence with deep moans.
They felt as if a nuclear device had been detonated in their souls.
The devastation was massive and they struggled to make sense of
their catastrophe. Had they done something wrong? Were they being
punished for some offense? They pleaded with me for answers.
If God is good,
then why do innocent children die? All people of faith must answer
this question, and the way we answer has far-reaching implications.
Our solution of this dilemma satisfies more than mere intellectual
curiosity. It determines what we believe about God's involvement
in our lives and what basis we have for hope. Thus it strongly influences
the course our lives take.
For many years
I struggled with this troublesome question. What I had been taught
to believe about God simply did not square with the profound suffering
experienced by my parishioners (not to mention such monstrous evils
as the Holocaust). Time and again the members of my congregation
would ask me why they suffered devastating losses and told me they
would continue to hound me if I replied with simplistic responses
such as, "We have to trust that God has a reason." My people sensed
what I had been thinking for some time--some of the traditional
religious answers are no longer satisfactory.
As a pastor who has served
in the parish for more than twenty years, I have been summoned to
console families struggling with the loss of loved ones from cancer,
suicide, and sudden accidents. I have buried young children, college
students on the verge of graduation, and people in the prime of
their lives. Over time, the traditional answers to unjust suffering
proved to be inadequate. A fresh understanding of God gradually
evolved as I faced real life tragedies and kept asking, Why would
God allow this to happen? Call it an internal struggle that would
not abate or call it a religious quest I could not avoid, I had
no alternative but to revise my ideas about God.
They felt as if a nuclear device had been detonated in their
souls.
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It
took several years, but the answers began to take shape. As I shared
them with members of my congregation, they responded with enthusiasm.
Many said that for the first time they understood why devastating
blows could strike anyone. Even better, they were recovering a stronger
sense of hope.
My answers are contained within the covers of this book, and they
are for everyone whose life has been (or will be) touched by grief--which
is to say all of us. I have tried to avoid using abstract language
and complex explanations, but that is not to imply that the answers
are always easy to embrace. Real answers to the difficult dilemmas
of life are not always easy to adopt. My prayer is that what I have
written will help you understand why suffering is so prevalent in
our world, and how--despite its presence--you can live a genuinely
hopeful life.
Chapter One:
Play the Ball
Where the Monkey Drops It
The story is
told of a golf course in India. Apparently, once the English had
colonized the country and established their businesses, they yearned
for recreation and decided to build a golf course in Calcutta. Golf
in Calcutta presented a unique obstacle. Monkeys would drop out
of the trees, scurry across the course, and seize the golf balls.
The monkeys would play with the balls, tossing them here and there.
My people sensed what I had been thinking for some time--some
of the traditional religious answers are no longer satisfactory.
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At first, the golfers tried to control the monkeys. Their first
strategy was to build high fences around the fairways and greens.
This approach, which seemed initially to hold much promise, was
abandoned when the golfers discovered that a fence is no challenge
to an ambitious monkey. Next, the golfers tried luring the monkeys
away from the course. But the monkeys found nothing as amusing as
watching humans go wild whenever their little white balls were disturbed.
In desperation, the British began trapping the monkeys. But for
every monkey they carted off, another would appear. Finally, the
golfers gave in to reality and developed a rather novel ground rule:
Play the ball where the monkey drops it.
As you can imagine, playing this unique way could be maddening.
A beautiful drive down the center of the fairway might be picked
up by a monkey and then dropped in the rough. Or the opposite could
happen. A hook or slice that had produced a miserable lie might
be flung onto the fairway. It did not take long before the golfers
realized that golf on this particular course was very similar to
our experience of life. There are good breaks, and there are bad
breaks. We cannot entirely control the outcome of the game. .
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