Don’t challenge people’s reality, that never works
A Story
One night, in the college history department, a young professor sat with his head in his hands. He needed to finish a paper he would deliver next winter, but his infant daughter had that day been diagnosed with an incurable disease.
Nora, who cleaned the building at night, came in to get his trash. He looked up. “Hello Nora, how are you?” he said, as he always did.
“Very well, thanks be to God,” she said, as she always did, and pulled a fresh trash can liner from her bucket. As she took out the old liner he passed his hands over his eyes.
“Nora, how can you give thanks to a God who allows such suffering?”
She stood up and looked at him. “Professor, if God came through that door right now, how many of us would there be in the room?”
“Three, I guess?”
“In that case, the answer to your question is that God’s ways are not our ways.” She smiled, and patted his desk, as if she would rather have patted his arm, and left.
The professor thought about what she had said. Working late some time later, he saw Nora again. How are you. Well, thanks be to God.
“Nora, maybe if God appeared, there would still be just two of us in the room. God being of a different order.”
“Ah,” she said with a twinkle. “In that case, the answer to your question is that the only hands God has to relieve suffering are yours and mine.” She took his trash, and left.
It was the night before he would leave for the conference to present his paper. He needed a success in his bid for tenure, and he was doing some last minute work, checking citations. Nora opened the door, carrying the new trash can liner.
The lights in the hall were incandescent, rather than fluorescent, and the wall behind her glowed gold. She looked like an icon.
“Nora, what would you say if I said that if God came through the door right now, there would be only one in the room?”
“Bless you, professor, I would say--what was the question again?” She folded her hands around the bag and looked at him.
The professor looked back, then shut his eyes, and breathed deeply. “No questions, Nora. Not one.”