Jesus was not born in a comfort bubble, nor did he encourage his followers to seek such bubbles. A comfort bubble is a psychological state in which individuals surround themselves with familiar and comfortable circumstances, often to the point of avoiding or ignoring challenges, discomfort, and the suffering of others. They may be willing to endure suffering with friends and family, but they try to avoid the sufferings of those outside their comfort spheres. It's too "depressing." Within their bubble, they strive to maintain a sense of security, routine, and emotional well-being. Often they organize their lives around luxury and privilege. They define "success" as rising above others, far from the madding (and unclean) crowd. A life of comfort, isolated from the harsh realities of the world, punctuated with opportunities for recreational pleasure, is their dream.
Alice McDermott's Novel "Absolution" calls this dream into question. One of its characters, Charlene, resides within such a bubble but also critiques hiding within the bubble as a kind of evil. She turns to charity as a way of breaking through the bubble.
Critics may wish, and she herself may wish, that she could do more than charity. She may wish that she lived in solidarity with the broken, like the sisters at the leper colony she visits. But she doesn't. Still, she knows that looking away from suffering is a sin, a kind of evil.
The God of open and relational theology does not live in a comfort bubble. In God there are no gated communities. Christians believe that Jesus reveals this ungated God. God is not a thing in the sky. God is the openness of love. Walking with God is not easy. Lead us not into temptation, says Jesus, and deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom found within, not apart from, a suffering world. We are to leave our gated communities and live in a spirit of radical love.
Can we be absolved if we don't live in this spirit? Can we be absolved if, after all, we prefer out gated communities? Is charity enough?
Alice McDermott's Novel "Absolution" calls this dream into question. One of its characters, Charlene, resides within such a bubble but also critiques hiding within the bubble as a kind of evil. She turns to charity as a way of breaking through the bubble.
Critics may wish, and she herself may wish, that she could do more than charity. She may wish that she lived in solidarity with the broken, like the sisters at the leper colony she visits. But she doesn't. Still, she knows that looking away from suffering is a sin, a kind of evil.
The God of open and relational theology does not live in a comfort bubble. In God there are no gated communities. Christians believe that Jesus reveals this ungated God. God is not a thing in the sky. God is the openness of love. Walking with God is not easy. Lead us not into temptation, says Jesus, and deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom found within, not apart from, a suffering world. We are to leave our gated communities and live in a spirit of radical love.
Can we be absolved if we don't live in this spirit? Can we be absolved if, after all, we prefer out gated communities? Is charity enough?
"In Saigon in 1963, two young American wives form a wary alliance. Tricia is a starry-eyed newlywed, married to a rising oil engineer “on loan” to US Navy Intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a talented hostess and determined altruist, on a mission to relieve the “wretchedness” she sees all around her.
When Tricia miscarries, Charlene sweeps her into a cabal of well-dressed do-gooder American wives. Armed with baskets filled with candy and toys, they descend on hospitals, orphanages, and a leper colony on the coast, determined to relieve suffering, no matter the cost.
Sixty years later, Charlene’s daughter reaches out to Tricia, now widowed and living in Washington. As the two relive their shared experience in Saigon, they are forced to come to terms with the ways their own lives have been shaped and stunted by Charlene’s pursuit of “inconsequential good.”
With a narrative impact that recalls Graham Greene’s The Quiet American , Alice McDermott confronts the unresolved mysteries and ironies of America’s tragic interference in Southeast Asia."
- Publisher
When Tricia miscarries, Charlene sweeps her into a cabal of well-dressed do-gooder American wives. Armed with baskets filled with candy and toys, they descend on hospitals, orphanages, and a leper colony on the coast, determined to relieve suffering, no matter the cost.
Sixty years later, Charlene’s daughter reaches out to Tricia, now widowed and living in Washington. As the two relive their shared experience in Saigon, they are forced to come to terms with the ways their own lives have been shaped and stunted by Charlene’s pursuit of “inconsequential good.”
With a narrative impact that recalls Graham Greene’s The Quiet American , Alice McDermott confronts the unresolved mysteries and ironies of America’s tragic interference in Southeast Asia."
- Publisher
Turning Away from Suffering
as a Kind of Evil
"And that recoil, Marilee, that perfectly reasonable impulse to turn away, to gag, you might say, to close your eyes at the sight of this suffering is, to my mind, Marilee, a kind of evil... We're capable of despising the sight of something so awful, something so incongruous with the good order we prefer, the beauty we seek."
Charlene is wealthy and powerful, and she well knows that wealthy and powerful people can hide from the suffering of others, especially those in different "classes" of society or with different ethnicities, religions, and cultures. She is trying to persuade another woman of privilege, Marilee, to join her in her charitable work.
Marilee resists. She doesn't want to be depressed, and she doesn't think it will do much good. Marilee wants to stay in her gated community, enjoy life, and remain within her comfort bubble of teas, fashion, and affluence.
Charlene disagrees. She thinks that such hiding, indeed even despising suffering, is a form of evil. She is being honest to the ambiguity of her own life.
Living in a comfort bubble is a special temptation for people who enjoy privilege, power, and opulence. This world is reduced to the comforts of prettiness, warm feelings for home and family, luxurious vacations, extravagant shopping sprees, galas, and the trappings of wealth. Some see living in this bubble as a sign of success, as living the dream.
And indeed, it is a dream, but one built on fiction. It serves as a form of anesthesia, a way of cutting off our feelings. It is also ignorance. Contexts of privilege and power too often mask the reality of intersubjective becoming. If we find ourselves in this situation, our need is to break out of our comfort bubbles or, better yet, to be broken out of them by encountering the face and presence of the other. Only then can we truly understand the way things are. Only then can we draw closer to the God of open and relational theology, a God who has no bubbles.
- Jay McDaniel
Charlene is wealthy and powerful, and she well knows that wealthy and powerful people can hide from the suffering of others, especially those in different "classes" of society or with different ethnicities, religions, and cultures. She is trying to persuade another woman of privilege, Marilee, to join her in her charitable work.
Marilee resists. She doesn't want to be depressed, and she doesn't think it will do much good. Marilee wants to stay in her gated community, enjoy life, and remain within her comfort bubble of teas, fashion, and affluence.
Charlene disagrees. She thinks that such hiding, indeed even despising suffering, is a form of evil. She is being honest to the ambiguity of her own life.
Living in a comfort bubble is a special temptation for people who enjoy privilege, power, and opulence. This world is reduced to the comforts of prettiness, warm feelings for home and family, luxurious vacations, extravagant shopping sprees, galas, and the trappings of wealth. Some see living in this bubble as a sign of success, as living the dream.
And indeed, it is a dream, but one built on fiction. It serves as a form of anesthesia, a way of cutting off our feelings. It is also ignorance. Contexts of privilege and power too often mask the reality of intersubjective becoming. If we find ourselves in this situation, our need is to break out of our comfort bubbles or, better yet, to be broken out of them by encountering the face and presence of the other. Only then can we truly understand the way things are. Only then can we draw closer to the God of open and relational theology, a God who has no bubbles.
- Jay McDaniel
Excerpt
"Charlene raised her elbows to the white tablecloth. Gestured with her open palms. “And that recoil, Marilee. That perfectly reasonable impulse to turn away, to gag, you might say, to close your eyes at the sight of this suffering is, to my mind, Marilee, a kind of evil.”
The poor woman made some sound of rational objection—she might have said, “Come now,” or “Really”—but Charlene stopped her with her palm. “It’s a very small evil, of course,” she said pleasantly enough. “That impulse to turn away. It’s not murder. Nobody’s getting corrupted. It’s not even something we can be blamed for, really.” A breath of a laugh. “Surely we can’t be held responsible for the madness of”—she waved her fingers—“creation.”
She seemed to consider for a second the insufficiency of the word. “Turning away,” a gentle indulgence now in her voice, “it’s an honest reaction, isn’t it?” As ever, she did not pause for reply. “But it’s an indication nevertheless of what we’re capable of, it seems to me. We’re capable of turning away. We’re capable of despising the sight of something so awful, something so incongruous to the good order we prefer. The beauty we prefer. I mean, Marilee,” she added with a huff of breath, “suffering.” She made the word itself sound like a fashion faux pas: like white shoes after Labor Day. An ill-fitting Guy Laroche. “Honestly, Marilee. Who wants to gaze at suffering?”
And then she smiled sympathetically across the table. “Do you see what I’m saying?” Conveying as she said it the full confidence that Marilee did not. A flush had begun to spread from under the neat collar of Marilee’s starched blouse, across her ruffled breast. “I thought we were talking about raising money,” she said, and then added with a small laugh, “for little toys.” “We are,” Charlene said, utterly patient. “It’s just that you said there’s very little good we can do. In this place. And I agree, I do. But that very little good might be just the thing required to stand against that very little evil—that impulse to turn away.”
McDermott, Alice. Absolution: A Novel (p. 151). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
Absolution?
Charlene's willingness to extend her hand to the "wretched" while benefiting from a position of privilege might be viewed by some as insufficient or even contradictory. I know people who will argue that merely providing assistance to individuals in need without actively working to dismantle the larger systems of privilege doesn't address the root causes of inequality and oppression.
On the other hand, there's another character in the novel, Stella, who appears to be more committed to a revolutionary or radical idealist approach, actively seeking to challenge and overthrow the systemic structures of privilege. Stella's character will resonate more with those who believe in a more aggressive pursuit of social change.
However, the novel seems to acknowledge that many people in the real world fall somewhere in the middle, much like Charlene. They may be aware of their privilege and extend help to those in need but may not be fully committed to dismantling the entire system from which they benefit.
Is there absolution? There is no final resolution in the characters, only the truth of ambiguity and the desire, at least on Charlene and Stella's part, to add goodness to the world. Perhaps this attempt to add goodness is itself the absolution.
The novel leaves us wondering, What is so clear about, is how unclear our lives are, when it comes to living the truth of mutual becoming.
- Jay McDaniel
On the other hand, there's another character in the novel, Stella, who appears to be more committed to a revolutionary or radical idealist approach, actively seeking to challenge and overthrow the systemic structures of privilege. Stella's character will resonate more with those who believe in a more aggressive pursuit of social change.
However, the novel seems to acknowledge that many people in the real world fall somewhere in the middle, much like Charlene. They may be aware of their privilege and extend help to those in need but may not be fully committed to dismantling the entire system from which they benefit.
Is there absolution? There is no final resolution in the characters, only the truth of ambiguity and the desire, at least on Charlene and Stella's part, to add goodness to the world. Perhaps this attempt to add goodness is itself the absolution.
The novel leaves us wondering, What is so clear about, is how unclear our lives are, when it comes to living the truth of mutual becoming.
- Jay McDaniel