when it doesn’t make sense

I reckon we’re hardwired to want to understand what’s going on around us. I guess evolutionary biologists might talk about it being a survival instinct that allowed our forebears to anticipate threats, to respond appropriately to what’s happening and consciously to interact with their environment and those around them in a way that is logical, predictable and appropriate.

So when tragedy strikes – either suddenly and unexpectedly or incrementally and predictably over a long period of time – it seems to me that our human instinct is to want to make sense of it. We want an explanation: we want to know what has happened. And we want a reason: we want to know why it has happened, which can also lead us to wanting to blame someone or something. It’s a natural instinct. It’s entirely appropriate to want to make sense of tragic events.

We may feel that knowing or blaming will help us feel better about things. But the answers are not always comforting – they can lead to a sense of vengeance or anger which don’t offer a balm to a raw emotional wound. And what happens when there aren’t easy answers, especially to the ‘why/blame’ questions? What happens when it doesn’t make sense?

[polite warning – the next sections contain robust faecal references]

In the film Forrest Gump there’s a scene where Forrest is running (with a growing group of ‘disciples’ running with him. He accidentally steps in a large dog turd…

• Man: “Whoa, man! You just ran through a big pile of dog shit!”
• Forrest: “It happens.”
• Man: “What, shit?”
• Forrest: “Sometimes.”

The man then develops that into a bumper sticker ‘Shit happens’ (which is very profitable for him).

If you will forgive the scatalogical language, I think that ‘shit happens’ is a fair way to describe that sometimes bad stuff just happens. Sometimes there isn’t someone or something to blame. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes what happens is just, well, crap.

So what are we supposed to do with that, especially people of faith who have been taught that God is in control? If God’s in control, doesn’t that give God some culpability for allowing shit to happen? I think it depends on what you mean by ‘in control’. I no longer think of it in micro-management terms, where God decides everything that is ever going to happen. Perhaps, to stretch the analogy to breaking point, we see it more in ‘senior management’ terms – God has set the parameters within which the world turns and life happens, but it’s up to us all how we interact with that.

‘Shit happens’ is a recognition that those parameters have been corrupted and we live in a world now where there can be astonishing good but also despicable bad. We live in a world where the sun rises every morning, but where weather systems can destroy whole communities. Yes, we may say that human-caused global warming is responsible for exacerbating the extreme effects of weather, but storms were sweeping away coastal communities long before the industrial revolution.

I’m not trying to let God off the hook here. If you read back a couple of bloggages you’ll see that I am trying to do justice to the darker side of life and be real. If it helps to cathartically scream at and blame God for tragic events then do it. God loves us. God understands how we are feeling. It’s a little like how a parent who loves their toddler will embraces and absorb their struggles, kicks and tantrums.

But don’t leave it there. A tantrum will eventually subside and the toddler melts into the parental hug. They accept that the parent’s love is greater than uncomprehending angst. They find solace in knowing that the parent is with them.

And that’s where I find some comfort. God is not remote. The perception of God as a senior manager suggests that God is distant from us and doesn’t know what we’re going through. So the analogy falls down there because God’s Spirit is intimately in us and with us. God is feeling what we are feeling. God knows the thoughts and emotions we can’t even articulate or name (and the Bible says God’s Spirit in us turns them into prayer for us). God is there with us, even when we are unaware of it.

Psalm 40 is a reflection by someone (David) who’s experienced shit happening. Here are the first 3 verses:

¹ I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
² He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
³ He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
and put their trust in him.

That’s lovely. But what about before that happens? I wrote this poem:

Psalm 39¾ (it comes just before Psalm 40)

I waited impatiently for the Lord,
wondering how long I’d be stuck in this sewage-contaminated hole:
asking why the Lord hasn’t pulled me out yet?

I waited impatiently for the Lord,
hollering at the top of my holler “How could you let me fall in?”
angry that the Lord’s fence around the pit was climbable.

I waited impatiently for the Lord,
holding my nose,
breathing through my mouth and
tasting the shit-stench:
angry at the Lord for giving me a sense of smell.

I waited impatiently for the Lord,
searching for hope
in the deep darkness,
my eyes unable to adapt:
looking in vain for comfort and hope.

I waited impatiently for the Lord,
reluctantly resigned to my fate.
And, wallowing in the Stygian
malodorous ichor,
I heard a voice beside me whisper
“Hello.”

Be blessed, be a blessing