What
about the tsunami in the Indian Ocean?
Faith
communities should be discussing this deeply. Raising money
is a good thing, certainly, but we also need to be examining
what this tragic event says about God. I will share my understanding,
but I encourage you to explore deeply with your pastor, within
your faith community, and through the words of those thinkers,
writers and leaders whose understanding of God brings you new
insights.
First, I don’t believe God caused the undersea earthquake that
started the tsunami. Such undersea events happen because the earth
is made that way. It does God a great disservice to blame God for this
specific event. We don’t protect God’s sovereignty by saying
that this, too, must have been part of God’s “plan.” We
merely make God a monster.
Second, I don’t believe God aimed the resulting waves toward
Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as opposed to other targets. The
areas hit had done nothing to “deserve” the tsunami. Some
assert that God was punishing those areas because residents had sinned,
perhaps by failures in personal life or by choosing the wrong religion.
To deduce from a storm that its victims were sinners being punished
is nonsense and an affront to God. Ours is a God of mercy and forgiveness.
Our call after the storm is to help in alleviating misery, not to pile
on more misery by blaming the victim.
Third, I don’t believe that God caused certain people to be nearby
when the wall of water hit shore. I know that many people want to believe
in a God who controls all things, who has a plan for our lives, and
who determined long ago where each of us would be on December 26, 2004.
I just don’t believe God works that way. Scripture shows God
as being engaged dynamically in humanity’s journey, as surprised
as we are by the way events proceed. God was surprised by the behavior
of Adam and Eve. Abraham wasn’t a puppet when he bargained with
God for Sodom. God was appalled by David’s choice to seduce Bathsheba,
a married woman. Theories about God’s having a plan usually come
from the prosperous and powerful, as a way of justifying their good
fortune. Such theories mean less to a man carrying a dead child out
of the water.
Fourth, I don’t believe that we can make our world safer by blaming
God for misfortune. If we want to make our world work better, we need
to stop distancing ourselves from other people’s suffering by
blaming it on God, and to start seeing how we are bound together: American
and Indonesian, Christian and Muslim, rich and poor. We will never
have safety until we see ourselves and each other as God sees us, as
beloved children of a merciful God.
(Return to Top)
Why
does God hate me? Just tell me why.
I
can assure you, without any reservation, that God doesn’t
hate you. There may be hatred in your life – from others
toward you, from you toward yourself, from you toward others – but
that hatred isn’t of God. God is love.
Jesus said we are to love our neighbors, even our enemies, even those
who hate us. God, then, is our companion and strength in trying to
turn the tide of hatred. That’s what lies behind the ancient
command to “turn the other cheek.” If you respond in love
to all, even to haters, then evil has less room to flourish.
Responding in love isn’t easy. Hatred wants to engender more
hatred. If you “change the dance,” as they say, you will
pay a price. Your strength, however, can come from prayer – the
prayer for “daily bread,” after all, is a prayer for food
before the battle. And strength can come from Christian fellowship – where
people consciously try to live in a new way.
If the hatred you feel is you hating you – far more common than
we realize – then you need to own it. Rather than project your
self-loathing onto God, which is a flourishing practice these days,
you need to examine yourself. Victims of parental abuse, for example,
often come into adulthood with strong feelings of self-loathing. God
didn’t cause the abuse, and God didn’t think of them as
deserving abuse. God is a source of healing.
That healing, or any healing of self-hatred, can only proceed by way
of honest examination of oneself, seeing the difference between behavior
by others and behavior by oneself, seeing the difference between who
you are (a child of God) and who others want you to be (a category,
a label, unworthy).
(Return
to Top)
Could
I please be granted wisdom?
This
probably proves the adage: “Be careful what you
pray for.”
In
my experience, God and life do work together to teach us wisdom,
but nearly always at a great cost. Failure, for example, is
a better teacher than success. Loss opens our eyes better than
gain. Being lost is prelude to being found. Sin opens the door
to forgiveness, and God means little until one tastes unmerited
mercy. Jesus came as “good news to the poor,” “release
to captives,” and “sight to the blind.” True
blessedness, he said, comes to the poor, hungry, weeping and
rejected.
Wisdom
isn’t learned from books or lectures, but from life,
especially from one’s failings and yearnings. Smarts
help, but aren’t the key. Some of the wisest people
I know aren’t highly trained or intellectual. The key
seems to be letting life in and learning from it. Wisdom
arises from engagement with people in all of their flaws,
from an honest assessment of oneself, from curiosity about
the world, and from humility on the edge of chaos.
I
believe God is eager to confer wisdom. The question is whether
we are eager to receive it. Wisdom yields little
wealth or power. But by arising from sadness and struggle,
wisdom enables us to live boldly in the world as it is. That,
in turn, leads to joy.
How
to take the next step? Unplug your escapes and diversions,
and engage life.
(Return
to Top)
As
a single woman in a highly family-oriented community of faith,
how may I be enabled to not feel left out?
The
Apostle Paul understood that all members of the body
are needed for the body to be whole. And that each
member of the body should do what it is uniquely able
to do.
Whether
the body sees that same need is less certain. Like
a person who eats poorly and expects heart and liver
to function anyway, the community of faith
lives in a certain denial. It considers some people
expendable, some better than others, and some invisible.
That
is not the head speaking of course, because Jesus considered
all worthy and necessary. Any wise community knows
that none are expendable or superior, and that when
some are un-free, then the freedom of everyone is endangered.
Not all communities are wise, however, especially when
wisdom conflicts with personal needs-fulfillment.
Churches
that consider themselves family-oriented often fail
to see other kinds of families, such as single-person
families. What changes that blindness, I
think, is perceiving the single person as having
gifts that the body needs. Singing, for example,
or leadership, or certain skills, or a heart for
mission. One form of mission would be compassion
for the stress and anxiety that are causing families
to be blind.
Rather
than try to be like them in order to gain acceptance,
I suggest you be fully yourself and put your unique
gifts to work.
(Return
to Top)
Teach me to pray.
Prayer
starts in listening. Listening to yourself – the
stirrings of your mind, the aches and joys of your
heart, questions not answered, answers not working.
And listening to the world around you – loved
ones, neighbors, strangers, newspaper headlines.
What
you hear changes hour by hour, day by day. So, then,
does your prayer. The key, I think, is a discipline:
not a schedule, not a posture, not a formula, but an
intention, a commitment to take your life and world
seriously, and therefore a willingness to be touched
and disturbed. That discipline might fall neatly into
a routine, like the monastic cycle of “hours,” but
probably not.
Having
listened, what do you say? In my experience,
the language of prayer comes naturally, like a child’s
cry or lover’s sigh. The point isn’t
eloquence, but honesty. A true word spoken truly
will have its own eloquence.
To
whom do you speak? God has planted in our
hearts a spirit that knows God and cries out to God.
We don’t have to learn about God before we
pray. We will learn more about God in the course
of praying.
What
happens next? I believe God listens and
responds. The nature of God’s response probably
won’t follow a straight line: you pray for
X, and God gives X. More likely, the fruits of prayer
will be discernible over time in a life transformed.
How
do you learn to listen? That may be your first prayer.
(Return to Top)
To
learn more about Tom Ehrich’s writings, visit www.onajourney.org.
