Dearest one,

I think of you often and with much gratitude and great affection. You, your family and friends remain in
my thoughts, heart and prayers. I celebrate Mrs *****'s life with you today in thanksgiving and I pray
that every consolation will be yours in any suffering.
I have often thought of you and your sensibilities regarding suffering when grappling with its reality
myself, whether personally and concretely or even theoretically and abstractly. I have always sensed a
certain resonance in our disposition toward suffering. So, I will celebrate Mrs *****'s passing by sharing
with you some of my thoughts and feelings about it all.
Now, on one hand, I cannot ambition setting forth the systematic theology that grounds the beliefs that I
have in a mere e-mail. On the other hand, if I cannot succinctly and accessibly set forth their basic
formula in a manner that might have practical consequence for the life of prayer and pastoral significance
for our life in community, then I would have to reckon the underlying theology is terribly impoverished.
In any case, it remains so much straw.
I believe in a creatio ex profundis. The first words of Genesis refer --- not to nothing, per se, but --- to the
tohu bohu or formless void. Theologians describe this as a tehom, Hebrew for abyss or the deep.
Reality, for me, thus has 5 distinguishable realms, so to speak:
1) the tehomic, described above
2) the agapic, the manifestation of the Trinity, which presents as love
3) the cosmic, where the agapic and tehomic interact via a divine indwelling
4) the mystic or the Cosmic Christ, where the fruits of cosmic interactions are eternally enjoyed as the
Mystical Body (a true creatio ex nihilo)
5) the mythic or the inner life of the Trinity
The agapic reality of love has a divine logic governing its cosmic indwelling that constrains its
interactions with tehomic realities (life's formless voids and encounters of the abyss). This is all quite
beyond our feeble imaginations but not wholly unintelligible.
The Spirit chooses to breathe over and penetrate the deep and invites us to co-creatively do the same.
When I say "constrains," I mean something akin to the idea that God could not make a rock so big that
He could not pick it up, which is logically nonsensical. Similarly, the idea of constraint to me refers to
God so respecting the freedom of tehomic realities that S/he coaxes (influences or coyly seduces) but
doesn't coerce (interfere with or forcibly rape) them, respecting their radical freedom in responding to or
cooperating with agapic initiatives (e.g. kenosis, love). Coerced agapeis logically nonsensical.
Suffering, therefore, is a tehomic reality and neither a product of creatio ex profundis via agapic
initiatives nor a product of creatio ex nihilo via our own or Jesus' kenotic self-emptying as a member of
the Mystical Body.

So, in a sense, in my view, all of the best known theological approaches (regarding, for example, evil)
can be reconciled, although I won't explicate that view here.
The practical takeaway is that God is ever only love and never the author of suffering and pain, not the
creator of the co-eternal formless void, the deep, the abyss, the tehom, the tohu va bohu. S/he is ever
loving it all and us all, sweetly even urgently coaxing but never forcing or insistently coercing our
cooperation, our surrender to the incarnational cosmic birthing of Christ.
Our every encounter of the tohu bohu in this cosmic reality invites a Marist fiat, that the Word may be
made flesh and dwell among us anew.
At every encounter of a formless void in our lives (and it presents in so very many ways, many very
painful) in which we agree to Let it be, I believe the choirs of angels sing another Magnificat (evening
prayer), another Benedictus (morning prayer) and another Nunc dimittus (night prayer). Of course, the
Benedictus is not only sung at Lauds but at funeral interments and the Nunc dimittus is not only sung at
Compline but at funerals and memorials.
As Simeon observed in Mary's case, our fiats very often will mean that swords will pierce even our own
souls --- and not because God wields them or authors our pain and suffering but because of the logically
unavoidable tehomic aspects of our cosmic reality.
It is only because of the joy that is set before us that we ever willingly embrace any cross. It is only
because love can utterly transform the tohu bohus and creatively engage the tehoms and give shape to the
formless voids in our lives that we kenotically surrender to and embrace them and then await the ensuing
joy which follows the self-giving acts of loving, conceiving, carrying and birthing.
The Spirit does not leave us orphaned or utterly abandon us in the suffering but consolingly abides in
somehow orienting, sanctifying, healing, empowering and saving us. We must discern the signs, watch
for the clues, wait for the Lord.
It is only love that's our desired end-product and joy that's our desired by-product. Make no mistake,
suffering and pain are only unavoidable waste-products.
Thus we always pray Let this cup pass but understand that even the divine will can be constrained by a
logic of love (even as we don't understand how or why).Where and when divine interventions will or will
not interfere with certain freedoms we cannot arrogantly presume to know. THAT God wills to otherwise
deliver us, I am confident.
THAT God can in any event transform us, I am assured.
HOW and WHY God intervenes now but not then, here but not there, I haven't a clue.
I only know that every trace of truth, beauty, goodness, unity and freedom (the 5 ingredients of agapic
love) is being eternalized, i.e. taken up into the Cosmic Christ --- every time a blade of grass greens, a
rooster crows, a lizard leaps or a person lovingly surrenders, cooperating with the Spirit, fulfilling the
incarnate Word.
Let us pray.Lord, now you let your servant, *****, go in peace; Your word has again been fulfilled.

deep peace, every consolation, great love be y/ours and healing " deliverance for all whom you call your
ownjohn