Perhaps suffering sounds off-topic for a blog on happiness. While it’s certainly not my focus, I believe that a fundamental part of true happiness is having looked suffering squarely in the eye and learned from it. If you’re like me, suffering is going to have to beat you over the head a few times before you listen up. Of course even when you have learned, it’s no guarantee you won’t suffer again. But the astonishing thing is if you really have learned from it, you’ll happen into moments of grace — or happiness if you will.

What sent me down this track was an unusual New York Times book review: Heartbreaking Work — described in its newsfeed as, “Essays on the isolation, pain and heroics that come with ministering to loved ones.” So much in it rings true to me. I share the fury of the father about “New Age pests, overdosed on media mythology.” Far too often I hear those suffering with cancer told it’s their own fault — that if they get a good attitude, they’ll get well — or other mushy-minded, selfish nonsense. I echo to Virginia Woolf’s floodgates of “extreme reality” loosened by the death of a child, a bitter divorce, the debilitating illness of a loved one, or the many other vicissitudes of life.

However, what really got me blogging was that despite the use of the word “ministering” in its description, the article never touched on religion. Not that I think any religion can solve extreme reality. But shouldn’t they be there to help? Isn’t that the heart of any religion? In the end, don’t they all speak to the question “Why?” In my experience, the urgency of this question ratchets up the more extreme the reality.

But as the author notes, “Our society would rather not focus on this area of experience and makes little provision for it.” If religion is even considered, it’s probably quickly dismissed — and probably with good cause, since so many churches have failed so many so miserably.

That said, the failure of organized religion isn’t universal. After maybe a decade of poor ministry, my church got its act together and now strives valiantly to provide much-needed pastoral care. It’s at the heart of the duties of our professional ministers, and extends beyond them into many other forms of ministry. Are we rare? I don’t know, but I fear our healthy ministry is more rare than our previous unhealthy one — and articles like this add credence to my concern.

Where is organized religion for those lost in “‘a black hole of time and energy,’ a ‘Black Balloon,’ ‘our own little prison,’ ‘Planet Autism’”? What does it mean that there isn’t there any mention of it in this context? And in the final analysis — why?