Dear brother Job,
Your cries of suffering and protest have pierced our bones. We haven't been able to sleep. Blood flows from our ears.
Your hands move in all directions: They signal to us, they beat us, they inquire of us, they stroke us. Where are you taking us, brother Job?
Your stench of death has penetrated our nostrils; we smell you everywhere. Your bony body goads us. Pieces of your wormy flesh cling to our own. We have become infected by you, brother Job. You have infected us, our families, and our people. Your eyes searching for justice and your breath saturated with fury have filled us with courage, tenderness, and hope.
How brave you are, brother Job! How strong is your resistance! You are, like us, a ghost: sick, abandoned, rejected, and oppressed. You are sickening (are we sickening?). Your friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar haven't ceased to torture you and give you poor advice.
They say that you should silence your protest and stop defending your innocence. They say that God has punished you and that you need to repent. And you, brother Job, in spite of everything, haven't given up. Rather, your shouts have become louder. You don't believe them, and you fight against them.
What's more, you dare to argue and fight against Almighty God. You blame God for your sorrow, and you blame God for being silent while you suffer. You have every right to defend yourself because you're human. It is the right of every man and woman to protest against unjust suffering.
Your friends have stopped being your friends because you have protested, and because you have dared to touch the untouchable: God. You have dared to touch the perfect God, the Totally Other who ordains the world without error; the God who distributes justice left and right.
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