"The third-century writer Origen of Alexandria explains the relationship between our effort and God's grace with a metaphor: It is like traveling in a sailing ship on the ocean. Our life is like the ship, and we are the captain. All our skill, energy, and attention are necessary to avoid shipwreck and arrive in port, for the ocean is dangerous and inattention is disastrous upon it.. Our ship, however, also needs the wind. It is the wind that fills the sails and moves the ship, and when the two are weighed against each other, the skill of the captain seems very small compared with the contribution of the wind." (Roberta Bondi)
I am tempted to say that this is the answer to questions that I have had for a long time, but although it may be a step in the right direction, I don't want to say that it is an answer. Whatever nice feelings this ship makes me feel, I still have to deal with not so nice events. San Diego is burning right now. I volunteered to answer phones this morning and how am I supposed to deal with all of this destruction? The last report that I heard said that 5 people have died. hundreds or thousands of homes are gone and people are calling because they just want to know if they can go home. They've got animals there in some cases and no doubt wedding pictures, and other heirlooms. One woman just wanted some food. I talked to one 23 year old girl who was scared to go back to her home where she lives alone but she had been evacuated twice already. The National Guard has shown up in several places to help direct things--M16s and all.
It may not seem like there is a connection, but what happens when the winds that fill the sails of our life-ships are hardly the providential or potentially providential breezes of good grace that bear us to hope and warmness but instead are the blasphemous Santa Anas that bring with them not cooling whispers but firey gusts that knock over semi-trucks and burn the homes of hundreds of people, causing 500,000 to be displaced from their homes and move into giant urban refugee camps where they can be "handled" effectively? What happens when the very seas that we are sailing on are rocked by huge swells whose only redeeming value is that they turn our ship toward the heavens to get one last glimpse of the God of dark clouds and thunder before they turn us down, down, down into the valleys and low places of the sea? Sure, my question is, "what happens when the world is literally on fire?" but also, what happens when suffering of all sorts is all around us all the time? What do we do with this grace at that time? At those times, when all our human straining to turn the rudder seems absolutely worthless. I don't really have a worthwhile answer. I could quote some Psalms about "when I go to the low places, you are there" and "when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." and maybe those are the only appropriate responses. But how can we trust in the God of dark clouds to bring back the sunshine and breezes of hope and wellness? I don't know an answer to that question that I can fit into a structure with grammar and punctuation.
i believe we can, though. i believe with all of me that we can, that if we trust only in a God of sunshine and smooth sailing, then maybe we are not trusting in a God at all but rather a false construction that we call God but is really our own desires projected onto a cosmic, abstract screen for the divine. I don't have any answer but that.
As I was hanging up the phones today, I kept saying "goodbye" over and over. And I thought of the origin of that word: "God be with ye." Truly. to those that are dealing with fires real, figurative, or both, may God be with you and bring you home.
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