Deep Down, I Hated God
When I was a boy, I had a baby sister named Lisa Gayle. I remember holding her one time. Lisa passed away from coxsackie virus as an infant. My parents inscribed her tombstone with the words 'our rosebud for God's garden'.
It wasn't until I was an adult that I finally came to terms I hated God for taking our rosebud and planting her in His garden. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but I certainly realized I had a lot of ambivalence toward this God who would allow such a tragedy to happen to a God fearing family.
Since, I have witnessed more tragedy in my own life as well as others, and I still don't have the answers I crave. There are cute books I have not read with titles like 'Why bad things happen to good people' and so forth, but I know the answers are not there either.
Mystery. Suffering is a mystery we all have to live with that the religious can only offer tentative answers for, where we must bear the blows of Fate.
The aggravation.
I must have the 'God' gene, because from the time I can remember and before, I have believed in God. I have believed the Universe, just our world alone, to be far too beautiful, far too complex and wonderful to be an accident. I know how irrational things really are, and believe in an organizing principle (the Logos) that turns chaos into order, and we have a small share in doing the same.
At bottom, I am still a Christian, though I think there is more to Christianity besides just what we are taught in churches and even the Bible.
But when I crack open a New Testament, and encounter stories of Christ dying and ressurecting, Apostles feeding 5000 with five loaves of fish, I know I am encountering Divinity which to me is cast in a most sublime form.
So yeah, I was angry with God deep down. And I still have answers I crave that go unanswered, for myself and others, but for better or worse, I cannot abandon the God of my youth.
It wasn't until I was an adult that I finally came to terms I hated God for taking our rosebud and planting her in His garden. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but I certainly realized I had a lot of ambivalence toward this God who would allow such a tragedy to happen to a God fearing family.
Since, I have witnessed more tragedy in my own life as well as others, and I still don't have the answers I crave. There are cute books I have not read with titles like 'Why bad things happen to good people' and so forth, but I know the answers are not there either.
Mystery. Suffering is a mystery we all have to live with that the religious can only offer tentative answers for, where we must bear the blows of Fate.
The aggravation.
I must have the 'God' gene, because from the time I can remember and before, I have believed in God. I have believed the Universe, just our world alone, to be far too beautiful, far too complex and wonderful to be an accident. I know how irrational things really are, and believe in an organizing principle (the Logos) that turns chaos into order, and we have a small share in doing the same.
At bottom, I am still a Christian, though I think there is more to Christianity besides just what we are taught in churches and even the Bible.
But when I crack open a New Testament, and encounter stories of Christ dying and ressurecting, Apostles feeding 5000 with five loaves of fish, I know I am encountering Divinity which to me is cast in a most sublime form.
So yeah, I was angry with God deep down. And I still have answers I crave that go unanswered, for myself and others, but for better or worse, I cannot abandon the God of my youth.
posted by !Booksinista! at 9:11 PM
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