The passing of one year into another rarely hits me with great effect. This year, however, has been a bit more profound. In brief, 2008 has been brutal for many of those I hold dear. In the past 12 months, I've seen few births and many deaths, financial ruin, miscarriage, mental breakdowns, physical ailments, cancer, infidelity, sorrow dashed hopes, injustice, strife, enmity--a catalogue of afflictions within my community that seems almost biblical. When asked to toast the year I came up with only this: To 2008; May it pass without memory and die like a man with no heir to carry forward his name.
The prophet Habakkuk once asked
How long, O LORD, will I call for help,
And You will not hear?
I cry out to You, "Violence!"
Yet You do not save.
Why do You make me see iniquity,
And cause me to look on wickedness?
Yes, destruction and violence are before me;
Strife exists and contention arises.
Therefore the law is ignored
And justice is never upheld.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
Therefore justice comes out perverted.
The Creator's standard response to such a lament tends to be something like "Can man fathom the ways of God?"--an explanation of suffering and injustice which I, like many others, find wholly inadequate. The authors and compilers of my favorite piece of holy writ, 4 Ezra (2 Esdras) felt the same.
Written around 100 C.E., after the destruction of their holy Temple, and several decades of brutal Roman oppression, 4 Ezra is typically read as consolation for Israel's people. The usual reading suggests that God's people are to take comfort in the fact that their oppressors will be stamped out and wiped from the earth, that the righteous shall be vindicated and sorrow will cease, but I read it differently.
4 Ezra is a "sendup" of similar such texts that are meant to console in this way. Basically, throughout the text, Ezra, the protagonist visionary, has a series of conversations with the angel Uriel. Ezra wants to know why God has allowed the Jewish people to be laid waste and enslaved. Uriel gives him a series of Yoda-like responses, typified by the recurring phrase "do you think you can comprehend the way of the Most High," but Ezra's not having it.
When the Angel Uriel replies to Ezra's questions with a koan about trees making war against the waves, and the sea rising up against the forrest, Ezra basically says, "I didn't ask you about trees and waves. Give me an answer to my question!"
Chapter 4
[23] For I did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things which we daily experience: why Israel has been given over to the Gentiles as a reproach; why the people whom you loved has been given over to godless tribes, and the law of our fathers has been made of no effect and the written covenants no longer exist;
[24] and why we pass from the world like locusts, and our life is like a mist, and we are not worthy to obtain mercy.
[25] But what will he (God) do for his name, by which we are called? It is about these things that I have asked."
[23] For I did not wish to inquire about the ways above, but about those things which we daily experience: why Israel has been given over to the Gentiles as a reproach; why the people whom you loved has been given over to godless tribes, and the law of our fathers has been made of no effect and the written covenants no longer exist;
[24] and why we pass from the world like locusts, and our life is like a mist, and we are not worthy to obtain mercy.
[25] But what will he (God) do for his name, by which we are called? It is about these things that I have asked."
I admire Ezra's courage and forthrightness, and the same questions that once plagued the Hebrew people, plague many of us now.
"Where were you when I laid the foundation's of the world," God says.
"No, God! Where were you when a drunk driver took my wife and my daughter from me? Where were you when money intended for sick children was gobbled up by an evil man full of greed and lust? Where were you when my husband left me for someone else, when my mind failed me, when a baby died inside my womb? Where were you when a bomb landed on my house, when cancer was growing in my body?"
But to leave it here would not suffice, because the sum of our days is not only sorrow and lament, but also joy, also hope. Barren wombs are filled again with life, infirmities are healed, love for a self-indulgent former spouse is replaced by the unselfish love of a new one. Houses are rebuilt, fortunes are remade, and the memory of those who have left this world carry us on into the next.
So we ask again, and this time, with a quieter voice, God replies, "My child, I am making all things new." And despite the many sorrows I've shared with those I love over the course of this past year, I can testify to that fact. I'll end this little piece of theodicy by providing a link to one of my favorite releases from 2008, Thad Cockerel's EP To Be Loved. Aside from its pure and simple beauty, it has also been a great comfort to me this past year. Thad writes and sings "The troubles of this world will wither up and die. That river of tears cried by the lonely some day will be dry." And it will . . .
You can listen to and download To Be Loved here.
liking this, Todd...
ReplyDelete