.
Miller presents a wonderfully Christian take on suffering. Zerchi explains to the same young women: .
"It is not the pain that is pleasing to God Child. It is the souls endurance in faith and hope and love in spite of bodily afflictions that pleases Heaven. Pain is like negative temptation. God is not pleased by temptations that afflict the flesh. God is pleased when the soul rises above the temptation and says "Go Satan". It's the same with pain, which is often a temptation to despair, anger loss of faith." .
Indeed Miller challenges societies ideas on suffering providing some very thought provoking material. The dying Zerchi himself when pinned under the collapsed wall of the abbey welcomes pain telling God: "What I impose I must accept." He wanted to endure as much suffering as the child of the women he tried to help. He prayed. He called on his most merciful and loving God. He wanted to accept all that God might help him endure. .
Miller was writing during the "Cold War" and understandably produced a story that is profoundly anti war, anti arms race, anti annihilation. He refers to nuclear weaponry as "Lucifer." He graphically outlines the effects of nuclear war. The pain, the suffering, the turmoil are all bought to life in this book. He talks about a billion corpses, the blind, the stillborn, the monstrous, the dehumanised. This provides the reader with very striking images indeed. .
Miller talks about the almost inevitability of nuclear war and a cycle of destruction then rebirth, followed by destruction again, and so on: "Are we doomed to do it again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall." Despite all the suffering Miller retains this sense of hope. This hope comes from the inherent goodness of humanity as well as the all-powerful God. Many of the quiet but heroic monks depart from earth to join a new colony in a safer part of the universe.
