Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)
2017 / 2. szám - MISCELLANEOUS-SONSTIGES - Homoki Gyula: Where to look in suffering? A fictional round-table discussion with
MISCALLENEOUS I SONSTIGES Gyula Homoki WHERETO LOOK IN SUFFERING? A FICTIONAL ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION WITHl.B.J.C. ANDJ.T. Suffering is a universal human experience. Everyone experiences troubles, difficulties, pain and loss in life. Being a human simply means that we are under “curse”, we cannot avoid having certain storms in our lives. Some of them are small and almost insignificant such as a toothache yet some of them are tremendously overwhelming. This universal, widely known and experienced segment of our lives is the main topic of Archibald MacLeish’s great play, J. B. which is based on the biblical story of Job. Right at the beginning, he introduces this universality, he puts it into the mouth of Nickles: “Job is everywhere we go / His children deadhis work for nothing, / Counting his losses, scraping his boils... 4 Job is everywhere and, at some points, we become Jobs as well. As I was reading through the play, the concept of ‘seeing’ had become more and more the center of J. B. MacLeish interprets the suffering as a way of learning or a school which we can never graduate from in this life. But what do we have to learn? The answer is ridiculously easy: “See God”.1 2 This becomes the ultimate purpose of any tribulation in our lives. However, this does not come that easy. We cannot find comfort that easily in the dark hours of pain. In the moments of the valleys of our lives, we often feel miserable and we are unable to fulfill this ultimate purpose of our misery, namely to see God. We confess with J. В.: “I go forward but He is not there, / Backward, but cannot perceive Him... ”.3 In these darkest moments, it can be life-saving if some fellow men come and join us in our suffering. However, most of the time, we accept this comfort and counsel from the mouths of people who have suffered just as much or even more as we do. We don’t 1 Archibald MacLeish: J. B., Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Riverside Press, 1958,13. 2 MacLeish: J. B., 50. 3 MacLeish: J. B., 128. 2017-2 Sárospataki Füzetek 21 135
