A Triptych of Recovery
I thought about it briefly, perplexed as usual by such a question. I mean, this question is no more than one of our usual and daily prayers..., but in reverse: instead of the usual whining or frantic petition for something to happen, it's a 180 degrees reversal and a flight from something that has happened. They both seem childish to me, but that's what we were taught; that's how we were taught how to pray: whine, beg, kneel, throw yourself down on the ground, promise tithes and candles. And when something bad happens, we were taught to ask why? - under the guise that this was some sort of metaphysics.
Since I do not "believe" in God - no more than I "believe" in my right arm...I really have no metaphysical hook to hang these notions of God's omnipotence and God's all-goodiness and why God allowed the earth to tremble; my mind is no longer a cloakroom for kids' coats, boots, and ways of thinking.
I expect God. My time of doubting has passed. I don't ask those things about why God did this, and whether there is an intelligent or stupid designer of the universe, and whether God loves me. I know what I have to do and try to do it.
This is a perspective closer to the Indian approach of the Lord Buddha: there is no question as to the existence or non-existence of God; there is only the way.
It is also the perspective of Jesus, but it has been so long that we have been studying pseudo-philosophy about the Holy, that we have quite forgotten it. That's why I have to jump over to the Lord Buddha: it surprises some conservative religious types...but it also criticizes them for what I believe is the incredible waste of spiritual energy of our age...trying to put religion on the same footing as sciences. In Religion, perpetual asking is nothing but perpetual dodging one's responsibilities.
If you wish to sit by the side of the road and ask whether God exists, or why God designed the earth to have earthquakes, you will sit there a long time.
ps.
About Pat Robertson and his opinion on Haiti:
I have studied Vodoun - or Voodoo - for a couple of years, trying to understand the human urge to connect to the Holy. It has never once occurred to me to dismiss Haitian religion as devil worship.'
What Mr. Robertson is doing is actually condemning freedom, for his implicit premise is that things were better and holier under Slavery than Freedom; only the Devil can give Freedom; hence, Freedom is the work of the Devil.
Typical of much of American religiosity in these times.
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2 comments:
I'm glad of this. "I expect God" rather than "I believe in God."
I don't remember ever once having the question come into my head "Why?" when something bad happened. I expect hard things as much as I expect good ones. I don't quite see how anyone can exist, know anything of history (even of 10 minutes ago), and not expect bad things to happen. Or just accept them when they do. I don't sit around waiting for bad things to happen.
Yes, too, to what you said about Robertson's voodoo on the Haitian crisis. Even St. Patrick in the 4th-5th century found a way to validate how the Celts worshipped by making a mark of the cross through their circle (sorry if I'm conjuring some bad scholarship here). "Eternity in their hearts" is apparently lost on Robertson. Have you heard the joke about the man recently ushered into heaven? When St. Peter takes him by one room with the door closed, he whispers: "Shhh, the Baptists are in this room; they think they're the only ones here." I can tell that joke, because I was a Baptist.
No. I've never heard that joke. It's funny how some people treat even God as if He were their family car...keep Him in the garage, don't let other people mess with Him...
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