And he takes and he takes and he takes.

09 May 2010

I’m not really sure how I should start. This Blog is a little bit different; instead of telling you about a specific adventure or event, I just felt like writing about a song I’ve been listening to recently. The song is Casimir Pulsaki Day and it’s by a really amazing artist, Sufjan Stephens.

Casimir Pulsaki Day is a sad song, in fact, it’s heartbreaking but that’s what makes it so special. It’s painfully honest and it deals with a difficult situation beautifully, truthfully and with a great deal of grace. I’m not a particularly emotional person, I don’t enjoy talking about my feelings and I’m having difficulty with this Blog – I can’t seem to find the words to adequately describe this song. I think it’s one of those songs that you just have to listen to. So please do. Try to think about the words and what they mean. I apologise if you don’t like it – you might think it’s too sad, which is fine, but maybe someone will get it. It’s really quite complex for something so simple.





Golden rod and the 4-H stone
The things I brought you
When I found out you had cancer of the bone

Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car to the Navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry

In the morning through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade
I could see what you were reading

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth

Tuesday night at the bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

I remember at Michael's house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse

In the morning at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared

Oh the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I find the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother

On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes

(Please stop reading... I got a little bit carried away and wrote a few thousands words about, well, nothing really. I can't bring myself to delete them, yet... You've been warned - read at your own risk!)

I should probably finish on that, because I can’t really follow it. But there are certain parts that really stand out for me. A part of the song that I really thought about was how they prayed over her body and nothing happened. How often does that happen to us? I would say that this is far more common than the miraculous healings that we all hope for. What does it mean? Does it mean that there isn’t a God? Does it mean that if there is, he doesn’t care? I can’t answer all these questions, but personally, I think that these things are out of Gods control. I choose to believe in an all just God, as opposed to an all powerful God who simply stands by while his children suffer. We are conditioned to believe that if we do good we will be rewarded and if we do bad, if we sin or slip up, then we will be punished. Essentially, we are taught that we will get exactly what we deserve. This theory is all well and good, until we consider the tragedies that affect even the best people. Of course we can stand back and say that God knows what he’s doing and that we shouldn’t worry, but what about when it happens to us? What happens when your life is affected? You’re a good person so this stuff shouldn’t be happening to you, right? The misfortunes of good people are difficult because they call into question what we know and believe, they call into question the existence and intentions of God. The only conclusion that I can come to is that we do not live in a fair world. By propagating the idea of God as a righteous judge, we give people a reason to be good, to be on their best behaviour and we make God and the world comprehendible. This is all very well and good when things are going well; we believe that God is all powerful, all loving and totally in control – but when things go badly, we blame ourselves. Sometimes the bad things that happen to us will be our fault. If I got ridiculously drunk and then drove my car, I would probably crash and that would be entirely my own fault. We must take responsibility for our actions, but what about when there is no apparent cause? What happens if I’m driving home and someone else crashes into me? Am I being punished and if so, what for? Is it because I forgot to read my scriptures last night? Some people prescribe to this view – it’s not hard to blame ourselves, we are imperfect and there will always be something we did or didn’t do, but personally, I cannot think like this. I cannot think, as some others do, that the earthquake in Haiti was because they worship the Devil and practice Voodoo. For every “bad” person who died in Haiti, a child died. In fact, I have no time for people who think like this. It’s ignorant and unfeeling and an insult to the God that I believe in.

We are taught not to question. We are told that God has his reasons and this is easy enough to say to someone else, it’s not as easy to listen to when you’re the one whose life is falling apart because of some divine reason. I know all the divine reasons – God is testing you, he’s making you a better person, everything happens for a reason, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, God is teaching you a lesson, he wants you to learn from this, God wanted you to depend more fully upon him... These reasons make perfect sense when you are sitting beside the hospital bed, comforting a friend, but what about when you are in it? I’ve also heard it said that God only sends us what we can deal with. He knows our strength and so gives us only what we can cope with – we should feel blessed that he has singled us out, we should feel honoured and privileged. We “should” but the reality is that we don’t. In my opinion, you can believe in a “good God who is not totally powerful, or a powerful God who is not totally good” (Kushner; 1981. 45). I choose to believe in Gods goodness.

The laws of nature make no exception for good people – if a righteous man and a wicked man fall from a building, the laws of gravity ensure that they both hit the ground. A cancerous tumour doesn’t care if you go to church every week. Sometimes there is no reason or logic. Sometimes bad things happen to good people but that doesn’t mean God caused it, it doesn’t mean God can stop it either, most of the time it means that life is really unfair. Pain and Death – two very unfair things. (Or are they? Without pain we would surely die. We need to be able to feel pain to know that our body is injured. Dying ensures that our lives are lived to the full – immortality is not something that anyone could truly want, more time perhaps, but not infinite time). Being a human is so much harder than being an animal. Animals lives are ruled by instinct and our lives are ruled by morals, which sometimes involve the suppression of instinct. By entering a world of good and evil, life is automatically more difficult – we develop emotional connections, our feelings are easily hurt. In fact, while all animals will die, humans are the only ones who know and comprehend this. We are also free to make our own decisions. We can decide to be good or bad and God does not intervene – he has to watch as we make these decisions, in the same way our actual (biological or social) parents do. I think that God would love to reach out and help us. He would love to stop us from making that bad decision or from getting into an ill fated car, but sometimes he can’t – he just has to watch. Another example of this is the Holocaust. If God is all powerful then why didn’t he zap Hitler into oblivion? Why did he let millions of innocent people die? Sometimes it’s easy to attribute natural disasters to the “Hand of God”, but what about something like this? One evil man and thousands of passive people enabled the Holocaust to occur, but where was God during all this? If you were in Auschwitz, would you blame God for not saving you? Would you thank him for teaching you a valuable lesson or would you understand that God knows what he’s doing, even if you don’t? I don’t know how I would feel – I would probably be angry. But I would find great comfort in an all just God who hadn’t abandoned me, but who was simply not able to help me in the way I wanted.

When something bad does happen, it’s tempting to try and minimize the mourner’s pain. You can offer the explanations that “they’re in a better place” or that “it’s what God wanted” – in fact, this is something I would have done. But this is the last thing that a person should do. In tragic times people need compassion, not superficial explanations. The idea of an all just but not all powerful God is the only thing that makes sense to me. It’s the only way I can make sense of senseless situations. I also have to think that God understands what I’m going through. I believe that he has felt every pain and every emotion that I have ever had. I don’t know if this is legit, but I’ve always thought that when Jesus was on the cross, he literally felt the pain and suffering of every person. He knows how it feels to have your heart broken, to lose someone you love and because he has experienced this, it makes him more real to me. If he cared enough about me to feel that pain, then he wouldn’t willingly let me experience it, this idea I suppose supports the claim that God is all just as opposed to all powerful – he would take away all that pain, if he could, but he can’t.

Do I believe that you can lift your hands and pray over someone’s body? Do I really think that prayer can save a person’s life? If prayer worked the way we wanted it to, then nobody would ever die. If our prayers don’t work, then how do we feel about God? Do we feel angry and disappointed? Do we lose any faith we might have had? If you have prayed and received a problematic answer, or no answer at all, you may attribute it to one of the following – you didn’t deserve what you prayed for, you didn’t pray hard enough, God knows what’s best for you and it wasn’t what you were praying for, someone else’s opposing prayer was stronger, God doesn’t hear prayers or even there is no God. If you don’t believe in these explanations and still have faith in prayer, it helps to rethink our ideas of prayer. Prayer shouldn’t be overly specific – you can’t pray for a baby boy or a baby girl, God can’t change what is already determined (no matter how much you want that essay to be an A). God doesn’t answer some prayers and not others – God doesn’t save one person in a plane crash because their prayer was better than the persons beside them. God can’t be invoked to change the course of nature; you can’t expect that flood to leave your house untouched while destroying your neighbours. You cannot pray for harm to come of someone else and you cannot pray for God to do something that is within your power – God can’t make you thin when you could achieve the desired result by going for a run. God can help but you cannot expect him to do anything and everything. I think that miracles come from something more than prayer – if miracles were purely a result of earnest prayer, then nobody would die and it would work every time. One of the most powerful things about prayer is that is brings people together and it can bring you closer to God, sometimes just talking is enough, even if he can’t zap you skinny. Prayer helps you find God and it helps you find people. It can comfort you and the belief in prayer can be strong enough to give people the strength to persevere. People who pray for miracles very rarely get them. People who pray for strength and courage and grace are far more likely to be successful. God does not send the problem – he gives us strength to deal with the problem.

I believe in God but I recognise that he is limited. I believe that he is bound by the laws of nature and I do not think that he sends illness or misfortune to anyone, good or bad. “I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it” (Kushner; 1981. 159). Kushner states that God does not cause our misfortunes, instead they are caused by bad luck or bad people or even the bad decisions we make, the natural and imperfect world we live in is a key contributor. If I believe this then I don’t need to feel anger towards God when I see someone I love suffer, instead I can turn to him, knowing that he only ever wants to help me. Instead of thinking about “why” something happens, I would rather think about “what” I’m going to do. If God neither kills nor cures, then what use is he? The only way to answer that is, God inspires people. He inspires people to help each other, to be there for each other – people are Gods hands on this earth and he inspires people to act. We are God’s hands and God’s language. What are you going to do about that? Can you forgive and love an imperfect world full of imperfect people? Can you forgive and love God, even though he has limitations? Do you understand that it is this ability to love and forgive, to be courageous, even when it’s difficult and you are faced with sorrow, that God has given you to make this life bearable?

This is something that I barely understand. I’m sure there are holes and contradictions in my theology. There is so much more that I need to learn, but I get closer every day. I would love to live in a perfect world where everyone was rewarded accordingly. I would love if all my prayers were answered, the way I wanted, every single time. I would love for the world to be in a perfect state where we didn’t have to worry about natural disasters destroying millions of lives. I would love it if God could zap all the bad things away, but that’s just not possible and my belief in a limited but all just God as opposed to an all powerful God who sits and watches while his children suffer is the only thing that makes sense to me. I know that rationally, God can’t exist – there are aspects of religion that make no sense at all and sometimes I think life would be easier if I didn’t believe in anything. But then I think that we all need something to believe in, my life needs a purpose and I suppose religion gives it that. Even if it turns out that there is no God and that all religion is fabrication, then I really wouldn’t mind – I live a good life and there isn’t anything I would change about it, even if there was no God to care about how I was living. Religion and religious institutions are not perfect, but the Gospel and the messages are, so I choose to believe in that. I believe in myself. I’ve been called a Cafeteria Mormon/Christian, taking the bits I like and living by those, but that’s ok. Religious beliefs are highly personal and I don’t see anything wrong in incorporating teachings of the various religions if they’re going to make you a better person. If you managed to get through all that then congratulations! I really don’t like talking about religion – I don’t want to give off the impression that I’m preaching or getting at anyone who is or isn’t religious, but I suppose I just got a little bit carried away. It’s very late and I really shouldn’t be allowed near a computer at this time of night because I tend to talk an awful lot of rubbish. I just needed to vent and now that I have, I think I might sleep for a week! I also really recommend the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Harold Kushner, a Jewish Rabbi. It’s an amazing book and he is such a wise man, he’s made sense of a lot of the things that I never really understood and while you may not totally agree, it’s still an interesting read. Again, sorry for going way off track – I just wanted to tell everyone how great a song was and I ended up talking about, well, I’m not really sure! I promise that my next Blog will be full of fun adventures :)

Xx