God and I have a fight and then I get baptized

Well, it's more like that scene in The Apostle where Robert Duvall shouts at God in a bedroom in his mother's house. It's a tradition that dates back to the Psalmist, so I guess that I'm in good company. However, I am having a difficult time justifying things right now.

I mean, the whole disparity in the world-wide distribution of goods and services is bad enough, but easier to chalk up to human frailty and sinfulness. The tsunami was bad, but it was thousands of miles away, and those people had different skin tones than I did. Even the stampede in Iraq seemed somehow less important when put against the backdrop of all the suffering that has gone on there in the last two years.

However, today, God seems at best indifferent or distant, and at worst, malicious and capricious. I mean, this whole smiting of the city of New Orleans seems a little excessive. I know they had a whole red light district, and there was Mardi Gras, and they spoke French and all, but it seems all out of proportion. And there was Judith, who put a real human face on the tragedy for me. I mean, here is somebody who is a teacher, who keeps a blog, whose whole life is destroyed right before her eyes. (By the way, she's fine, she made it to Houston, and from there, will be flying to be with her family. But please keep praying for her and all the Novaurelians.)

Anyways, I went to the AFC tonight to swim laps. I've been really mad at God, because I have diabetes. It's stupid, I know, but it just seems unfair. I mean other people can stuff their faces with all sorts of crap, have ridiculously expanding waistlines, and they seem to live fancy free.

So, as I was swimming, I was thinking that there really are two choices for me. The first choice is that this world is a random admixture of physical principles, matter, and energy that has somehow coalesced into intelligent life. In this view, the universe is neither good nor bad, but indifferent. Cataclysmic explosions and violence are the rule, and the flowering of beauty in one small corner of it could be snuffed out at any moment by a ridiculously oversized destructive force.

The second choice was that there was an intelligence who had somehow hidden inside the very nature of this universe. This intelligence had crafted a cosmos that is disastrously entropic and dripping with tragedy. The reason for all this suffering is somehow known to this intelligence (mere caprice?), but hidden in it's complexity from simple mortals.

Well, both of these worldviews seemed drastically cold, uncomforting, and at an emotional level, completely unacceptable. As I pondered my growing rage, I began to swim with a vengeance. I was panting for breath, but I kept pounding the water. I then came upon a concept that seemed to seep from the tiles of the pool--I am supposed to be mad at suffering. It should piss me off that no Federal agency sent in buses to evacuate those without motor vehicles until days after the hurricane. It should make me angry that sociopaths can abuse the trust of really good people. It should make me mad that the cells in my body either don't know how to make enough insulin or don't know what to do with the insulin it already has or even both.

Evil should make me so mad that I do something about it. As I pounded furiously at the water, I was reminded of the biblical metaphor of death and rebirth. The water of baptism represents the abyss, the flood, and death. Peter was being very bold to step out of the boat on the lake of Galilee, seeing as he probably did not know how to swim. As I was swimming back and forth, I realized in a way that I was dying to the sinful nature that blames God for not being able to eat ho-hos or for my staying awake for 36 hours straight (due to lack of summertime preparation) on the first day of school. Of course, one can die to the sinful nature and the next morning wake up and have to lay it all down again.

The perserverance of the saints may be a theologically sound doctrine, but in my practical experience it is worthless rubbish. I've never met a saint that has perservered perfectly through everything. Look at Peter jumping out of the boat and then sinking like a rock--or, when Jesus told him, "Get behind me, Satan!"

Well, I've never been very good at giving anyone the silent treatment, so I guess God and I are still on speaking terms, but we've got a lot of talking to do. I think I'll start here.

Psalm 10
1 Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?