A Strange Inner Feeling,
by Breanna Poole
"Silence" far and away has blown me away. This book is one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a very long while, and I'm so glad this class decided to read it, if only because it give me the opportunity to read this book which I might not have read otherwise.
If I am being really truly honest, I had not been sure what to write about in this blog post. It's not that I don't find this book interesting or worthy of discussion, it's just I was not sure what I could add to the discussion that hadn't already been said before by much more eloquent people than myself. Then something came to mind, a very specific paragraph that caused a lot of feelings to stir up in myself. This paragraph is on the middle of page 57 (of my edition at least), in Chapter 4, where Sebesation is thinking over the accusations that Kichijiro threw out before he was sent to Nagasaki. Sebesation is lamenting over what he says, and realized that Kichijiro was blaming God and wondering why God had been so silent as the Japanese Christians suffered so brutally. What's interesting to me is that Sebesation doesn't linger very long on this question; in fact the next paragraph begins with "Anyhow", likes he's trying to quickly change the subject as soon as possible. Perhaps it is because Sebesation can not truly reconcile this with his image of God? Trying to ignore a piece of himself that wonders if Kichijiro was right?
Is Kichijiro's words stirring something inside Sebesation? A seed of doubt, perhaps? It's seem to me a bit of real-life foreshadowing as to what would come for him, given that he would apastatize as well. I think it's important that we remember, as Sebesation does in this one letter at least, that all suffering has a purpose for God, if only we can't see it. But I think it is incorrect to dismiss these feelings out of hand like Sebesation did; I've always firmly believed we should not dismiss doubt. That we should work through the feelings but listening closely to God and throwing ourselves into Him and His word -- not refusing to acknowledge it. I do believe that Kichijiro had very real doubts, doubts that I'm sure all of us have had when suffering has surrounded us (maybe not to the level in this book) and we don't feel like God is speaking us, but what he lacked was faith to overcome them. What Sebesation lacks, however, is the ability to reconcile doubt with faith.
P.S. I commented on Jacob and Osten's posts.
by Breanna Poole
"Silence" far and away has blown me away. This book is one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a very long while, and I'm so glad this class decided to read it, if only because it give me the opportunity to read this book which I might not have read otherwise.
If I am being really truly honest, I had not been sure what to write about in this blog post. It's not that I don't find this book interesting or worthy of discussion, it's just I was not sure what I could add to the discussion that hadn't already been said before by much more eloquent people than myself. Then something came to mind, a very specific paragraph that caused a lot of feelings to stir up in myself. This paragraph is on the middle of page 57 (of my edition at least), in Chapter 4, where Sebesation is thinking over the accusations that Kichijiro threw out before he was sent to Nagasaki. Sebesation is lamenting over what he says, and realized that Kichijiro was blaming God and wondering why God had been so silent as the Japanese Christians suffered so brutally. What's interesting to me is that Sebesation doesn't linger very long on this question; in fact the next paragraph begins with "Anyhow", likes he's trying to quickly change the subject as soon as possible. Perhaps it is because Sebesation can not truly reconcile this with his image of God? Trying to ignore a piece of himself that wonders if Kichijiro was right?
Is Kichijiro's words stirring something inside Sebesation? A seed of doubt, perhaps? It's seem to me a bit of real-life foreshadowing as to what would come for him, given that he would apastatize as well. I think it's important that we remember, as Sebesation does in this one letter at least, that all suffering has a purpose for God, if only we can't see it. But I think it is incorrect to dismiss these feelings out of hand like Sebesation did; I've always firmly believed we should not dismiss doubt. That we should work through the feelings but listening closely to God and throwing ourselves into Him and His word -- not refusing to acknowledge it. I do believe that Kichijiro had very real doubts, doubts that I'm sure all of us have had when suffering has surrounded us (maybe not to the level in this book) and we don't feel like God is speaking us, but what he lacked was faith to overcome them. What Sebesation lacks, however, is the ability to reconcile doubt with faith.
P.S. I commented on Jacob and Osten's posts.
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