It seems like such a wise verse: Man often suffers most By the suffering he fears; But that does not show up;/ So he has more to bear/ Than God gives to bear.
The writer of this poem, of which only the first two lines remain famous, was preacher Jacobus Revius (1586 – 1658). His oeuvre can be reduced to those two lines – it doesn’t seem like much, but how many poets wouldn’t want to sign up for it?
My question is whether those two rules are as wise as they seem. Judging from the pervasive suffering in recent days, it seems that people are right to fear that suffering. It certainly ‘shows up’ all the time and everywhere, that God of Revius just can’t get enough of handing it out.
I am now referring not only to the suffering in Israel and its Gaza Strip, but also to all kinds of other forms of contemporary suffering, however futile, compared to the first-mentioned atrocities. The dismissed Ajax coach Maurice Steijn must also have suffered from the inevitable.
Regarding Israel, I previously wondered here what the country is still allowed to do to defend itself. I did not receive a clear answer, not even from myself, but it became painfully clear – from Biden to Rutte – what Israel can no longer continue to do: closing off and bombing a piece of land (“twice Texel”) on which more than two million people are locked up in despair.
The question is whether Israel will continue to do that for much longer, because I have sensed hesitation there, ever since they postponed a ground offensive “because of bad weather.” Do Israeli politicians perhaps want more than the military considers sensible?
Jews outside Israel are now also experiencing a form of predictable suffering, because the war with Hamas is a coveted alibi for the anti-Semites among us. Jewish schools must be closed for safety reasons and yarmulkes must be removed; it is still lacking that anyone with any authority dares to publicly suggest that “Hitler did have a point somewhere.” Populist heroes in particular often have that kind of point.
All that, sorry Revius, completely rightly feared suffering took on an extra dimension for me when I spoke to a sheep herder in Brabant. My head was still pounding from the suffering in Israel, as I innocently asked him how he and his sheep were doing. He calmly asked if I was familiar with the bluetongue virus. I ashamedly admitted that I didn’t know ‘the ins and outs’ of it. (The informative article by Thijs Kuiken in NRC I hadn’t read Saturday’s yet.)
He patiently explained to me what was unpleasant about the situation of Dutch sheep herders. Their sheep are dying like flies (yes, that is possible) from a virus for which there is no vaccine yet.
Every day that you, as a shepherd, visit your sheep, you may find them dying. It had not happened to him yet, but many of his colleagues, all over the Netherlands, had. He didn’t use big words about it, but it was an agonizing realization, I understood.
Don’t those two lines from Revius gradually deserve a radical overhaul?
passing? I suggest: People often think mainly about the suffering that will continue.