About Faith and the Unseen

While we lived in Redstone, Rabbi Harold Kuschner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, spoke at least once every year at the Aspen Chapel. On one occasion, Rabbi Kuschner told of an encounter he had at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center several years ago. As I recall it the story went like this:

Rabbi Kuschner is asked by a patient there, a 32-year old Episcopal Priest dying of AIDS, to come see him. Kuschner agrees, goes down the hall with the medic and meets this young man, as Kuschner says, “pale, emaciated, lying in bed hooked up to several intravenous tubes.”

Kuschner asks, “How are you doing?”

The man replies, “Not too good. But I’m getting used to it.”

Kuschner then asks if the man "... somehow feels that he’s been brushed aside by God, locked out, diminished because of something in his character or behavior."

The young man replies, "No, just the opposite. The only good thing that has come out of this is that I found out something I always wanted to believe is really true. No matter how much I have messed up my life, God hasn’t given up on me. I’ve felt his presence here in the hospital room. God can love me even when I find it hard to love myself."

He pauses to gather his strength before continuing.

"When I was young, I thought I had to be perfect for people to love me.My parents gave me that message, threatening to withhold love every time I offended them. My teachers in school gave me that message. My Sunday school teachers reinforced that lesson. We didn’t go to one of those hellfire and brimstone churches, but we heard a lot about how much pain we were causing God every time we sinned, and I think that was just as bad, especially given the list of things we were told were sins."

The young man continues, "I tried so hard to be perfect so that my parents, my teachers, and God would love me. I probably went into the ministry in part so that people would think that I was morally perfect and love me for it. But every time I did something that I knew was wrong and every time I told a lie to cover up for myself, I would hate myself for being such a phony, and I was sure that God was as contemptuous of me as I was of myself. But lying here in this hospital bed , knowing I’m going to die soon, I had this insight: God knows what I am like and God doesn’t hate me, so I don’t have to hate myself. God knows what I’ve done and he loves me anyway. I’ll be leaving the hospital soon, not because I’m getting better but because there’s nothing more they can do for me and they need the bed for someone they can help."

"I don’t know if my congregation will take me back now that they know I’m gay and I have AIDS and I am dying. I hope they will, because there is one last sermon I want to preach to them.I have to share the lesson my illness has taught me. You don’t have to be perfect. Just do your best and God will accept you as your are. Don’t expect your children to be perfect. Love them for their faults, for their trying and stumbling, even as our Father in Heaven loves us."

The Rabbi concludes, “Oh, young man, you’ve got it!You have made a claim, not on the seen, but on the unseen, the unfathomable and undying love of God reaching out for us, whoever we are, whatever our condition, indeed, however distant we may feel, eager to succor, to hold and to sustain us.