God at work?

The following is a piece I wrote nearly two years ago…I post it now because within it I broach (if only at surface level) many of the foundational questions asked by the 'Gospel for the Disillusioned.' Why do we live and die? Is God transcendent or immanent? Is God good – and what do we mean by that? What is the source of evil? – along with a general questioning of traditional dogmas and truisms that serve only to keep us from asking hard questions. Mostly the piece is a personal expression of loss. An integral person in mine and my family's life died in June two years ago…he is in our constant memory…

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The other morning my two-year old son, playing with a jigsaw puzzle, looked up at his mother and asked, "Papa at work?" "Yes…Papa's at work," she said before she had to quickly leave the room to shed tears in private.

Papa's 'been at work' for several months. A heart-attack in May ripped away the most amazing and benevolent man we had ever known from our lives. It's an all too common story – rather, I guess, it might be 'the' story. We will all die. Our physical bodies are on an unavoidable collision course with metaphysical questions – Why do we die? Why so young? Why so tragically? Why are we still here? Where is God in all of this?

Unfortunately, there are far more answers – and people willing to offer them – than questions. It seems everyone else has it figured out. Those grieving in your hometown today will be confronted with every imaginable explanation from well-meaning family, friends and spiritual types. Poems will be read, theological visions will be shared, scriptures will be ripped from their context and the Divine will be disfigured. Far too often the grieving will hear stories of 'God's will' and 'There's a good reason for everything.' Mourners will be told to trust that God had a good reason for 'taking' their loved one.

Really? Does Jesus have so much free-time now that he's taken up the micro-management of heart attacks, mass murders, hate crimes, genocides and natural disasters? Orchestrating deaths like a symphony for some climactic future blessing? Only in the sublime intoxication of the American middle-class malaise could we believe such a disgusting conception is helpful – and somehow 'spiritual.' Does God really work all things for 'the good?' (Rom 8:28) Whose good? For what good? The widow's life will certainly not be qualitatively better now that her husband is gone. The children who starve as orphans in Western and Southern Africa because their parents have been slaughtered by warlords or decimated by HIV – are they experiencing good?

Yet the answers come (God forbid our minds wander or question such 'sound doctrine'). And it seems that most of the answers are designed to get the one grieving to…stop grieving. And it appears that is what most people desire for the grieving. Pain is the last thing we want to experience – and we certainly don't want it imposed on us by others. Sadness is somehow a sign of spiritual weakness – and we don't want the disease to infect us as well. So we mask fear with answers…to avoid having to ask our own tough questions.

A pastor friend recently shared with me his concern that one of his teenage congregants was 'bitter' at the sudden passing of her father. I wondered to myself, "Why would she not be bitter?" Her father is dead! For good or bad – saint or deadbeat (and he was) – the loss of a parent is unimaginably painful. But, "don't be bitter," they tell her. "God's in control of it all," they tell her. Well, why did God kill her father with cancer then? I don't think a scripture quotation or some well-contrived theological paradigm is going to sweeten the situation. What answer could solve her dilemma? What metaphor could remove the spike from her heart or the bricks from her stomach? What spiritual simile – rehearsed as it may be – could lighten a load heavy enough to sink the Titanic?

Tragically, we're all taking part in the 'death parade' known as human existence – and eventually the 'float' of someone we love is going to pass by. Meanwhile we must watch – the only question is what our vantage point will be? It may be more comfortable to stay at home, to recline in our living rooms and commentate on the quality of each presentation as it passes left to right across the screen – being able to see the 'big picture.' But, parades were meant to be experienced in person. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it's hot, and sometimes you can't see past the hat that lady is wearing, but there's nothing like a good parade. The thing is, the closer you get to the experience, the less you know what's going on. Who's next? Where is that band from? Wonder if they'll have candy? When is Santa Clause coming? …Is that the end?

Questions aren't bad. They reveal intimacy and relationship. They reveal a depth of human experience that can't be explained away with semantics and dogmas. Painful spiritual questions are a part of the healing process – much more so than duplicitous and thoughtless answers. There's no need to defend God when the grieving, who has a front row seat for the 'parade,' asks tough questions. There's no need to wipe all the tears away – or deflect their attention. They're watching the parade…and their favorite float is slowly passing out of view. Crying, screaming or laughing – let them watch until there are no more questions to ask.

So, if my wife cries every time she sees his picture, if her mother calls out to God for mercy from her bedside at night, if I turn the station when an Elvis song comes on, and if we frankly don't feel like going to church on Sunday – just know it's our way of looking to the sky, and, in what must seem like the voice of a child to the Divine, asking, "God at work?"

"My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?" A familiar question from a familiar figure – and one well worth asking in this all too troubling journey we call life…and death. – DCN, Fall 2007

Genesis…again

The Hebrew Bible begins with the words "In the beginning…" – my Hebrew is a little rusty (let's be honest, it was always rusty), but I think the literal translation is "At the head of things…" At birth, if things go well, it is the head that enters into the world first. At the beginning of one's life, his head emerges from the comfort of a warm womb into the blaring lights and commotion of a delivery room. For a few brief seconds it is a rude and alarming welcome. Then, bloody, wet and shivering she is placed on the bosom of her mother. There a new comfort is found – it is a place of provision and protection…or at least it should be.

As my second son's head entered the world – permeating the room with his cries before the rest of his body had emerged – I was immediately hit with a wave of emotion. I fought back tears as he was rested on his mother's bosom. I fought back tears as I watched him make the first movements with his arms and legs – and trying to open those beautiful blue eyes. I fought back tears as I held him for the first time – so small, even at a robust 8 lbs. and 5 oz. – and heard those first baby noises, and felt the first touches from those baby hands and feet.

Over the first few days of his life I have found myself fighting back tears and emotions left and right. One of our first visitors brought their one-year old son. As I watched him laugh and clap with the unfettered joy of a human being who still lives in Eden, I was reminded of the wonderful innocence with which we come into the world. Later as I watched my first-born, almost four years old, hold his new baby brother for the first time I was impressed with his willingness to welcome a stranger into his life. And as my father gazed deeply into the face of this newborn I recalled the power of a blessing that is passed from one generation to the next.

Something about this new birth had the power to peel away the calloused layers covering my humanity. Suddenly I have found a renewed sensitivity to others – something that has been lacking in the disillusioned malaise of my recent history. I've found myself reawakened to the sacred – maybe finally beginning to put the jagged pieces of a broken faith back together, though the picture emerging appears quite different…more abstract than paint-by-numbers.

Maybe the revival of sensitivity is due to 'something in the air' – quite literally. Because with every new birth comes new life. And maybe, because with every new birth of humanity, God comes into the world anew – a life imbued with the divine image, lungs filled with the breath of God. As the baby emerges head first, and breathes, his exhale is a fresh wind of God to be inhaled by those in its presence.

And the baby herself is a tangible reminder – that God is love…selfless love. With every new garment, with every diaper change, with every feeding, with every sleepless night, with every doctor bill paid, with every change to 'our' routine, we are given a new opportunity to love without reciprocation – to love selflessly. We are given an opportunity to selflessly serve another – and to learn the value of serving others. We learn again the value of taking in a stranger, of clothing the naked, of feeding the hungry, of caring for the sick, of embracing the lonely, of advocating for the disadvantaged.

'At the head of things' I am reminded that life is intrinsically valuable. And that underneath the soiled clothes of our humanity, each of us, laid bare, has within us the potentiality of the divine…and only selfless service one to another has the power to bring it out. Breathe deeply new parents – it is the 'breath of life.'

[The Divine] breathed the breath of life into the [human's] nostrils, and the [human] became a living person – Genesis 2:7b (NLT with liberties)