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The Pulpit
Theology by Julie Fonda Today I had a long and tearful conversation with a dear friend who at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (and this is California) was dealt a stunning blow by his East Coast doctors who examined and tested him a week ago. My good and faithful friend was given his doctors’ collective opinion that he has only two years to live. And more so than at any other time in my 51 years – although I never let on to my friend what I was thinking – was I tempted to change my theology to the "Life is Arbitrary" School of Thought, even though in my heart-of-hearts, I have for many years been convinced this not to be the case. I have found it easier to believe in the tenets that I was taught in my childhood than to believe that we are all products of a random act, an explosion, a mutation, an accident, an unplanned splitting of one cell that made two and then four and then eight and then ten million-to-the-third-power. And voila! The First Man! We are far too intricate, multifaceted, complicated, fascinating and wonderfully made to he the product of an adventitious happening – a ubiquitous burp in the universe. And if I believed that, then it would be perfectly logical for me to pack up my minivan and take all of my vacation time out at Roswell on a Martian-Spotting Holiday. (I think that I would find chasing tornadoes to be far more interesting and thrilling, though, because at least I know that tornadoes are REAL..) I still believe in the basic theology that I was taught in my childhood, although it has been somewhat altered within my own mind by tragedies, natural disasters and even a few rather sizeable vicissitudes. But this whole concept of suffering tends to make me back-peddle towards the "Big Bang," theory of the origin of life – or at the acme of my spirituality -- in the particular Creationists’ Conviction, where some Super Being just set the ball in the Universe and gave it a big Lottery-Wheel spin, his responsibilities and influence ending at that point – sort of like a bastard’s father -- and as the world turns, wherever the little ping pong ball lands at birth, becomes your particular lot in life. Maybe hedonism has infiltrated and contaminated my ideology? Like the first time I asked one of my sons to pick up his toys, he shot a look of incredulous disbelief at me and said, "But, Ma-Ma! THAT’S not fun!" Was I teaching my children that everything that mattered or was to be taken seriously or carried out had to be "FUN?" Evidently so! Now I will be the first to admit that I am -- and have always been -- a party girl and have never viewed myself as the "substance" of anything -- but rather as the "fluff" in any given relationship or partnership or erstwhile undertaking. I’m not good at suffering --(I whine). And I’m an abysmal failure at waiting – (I worry). The word "Discipline" – in the dyslexic portion of my mind – is seen as and pronounced: "DO-IT-LATER." I can talk for hours about a new way of living, make signs for it, broadcast it to the world – but in reality, will probably never lift a finger to actualize it within my own life. I am the perfect candidate to work on the Home Shopping Network. Do you really think that a woman who makes her living doing T.V. infomercials really WEARS that jewelry and clothing or uses the cosmetics she proselytizes all day long, and into the wee hours of the morning on television? And when she gets home from a busy day at the Network, does she run into the kitchen and start whacking away at potatoes and carrots with her new Veg-o-ma-tic? And while dinner is simmering in the Teflon Pans that she has incessantly raved about (for a paycheck), does she then proceed to the utility closet and whip out her complementary edition of the Super-Shark Vacuum Cleaner – you know, the one that will pick up a bowling ball -- and suck into oblivion all of the uneaten pretzels and candy wrappers and God-knows- what-else that is underneath and behind the furniture in her family room? (I once accidentally vacuumed up a dead eel – who had been missing for weeks -- from behind our couch with one of those bionic vacuum cleaners! Ugh!) And then lastly, before she spoons dinner into her "Fix-It-And-Freeze-It" Serving Ware, does she quickly clean the toilet bowls in her three-bathroom tract home with the "Ultra-Crapper-Catching- Cleaning-Contraption" that she was paid to do a 15-minute plug for just before she finished her day at the Network? I think not. Those super sales people are fun (or funny) to watch on television where they expend three days’ worth of enthusiasm and adrenaline the second the camera begins rolling. But I can envision any one of those ladies of infomercial fame, pulling into the driveway of her home in the suburbs, and silently opening up the front door after a draining day at the Network of exuding artificial sunshine, feeling used up and fed up -- looking around furtively to avoid her children so that if they run up to her shrieking , "Mommy is home!" she doesn’t say what she is really feeling and (heaven forbid) become temporarily authentic and tell them, "I sure as Hell am. Now shut up and leave me alone!" The Home Shopping Network ladies are real people, just like the rest of us with problems and addictions and, I would venture to guess, that they are occasionally stricken with what we call "Terminal Illnesses." And there IS no Santa Clause. And the Easter Bunny was a great big lie, just like the Tooth Fairy was, and all of the rest of media mania that is pumped into us daily, everywhere we go. We don’t want to see unpleasantries, and so we avoid them like the plague and we deny, deny, deny. And those men and women of the cloth and -- now even those with alternative sexual orientations – have the nerve to stand up there in their pulpits, waving around incense, chanting prayers in churches and temples and synagogues and mosques – and tell us that God (although He is invisible, untouchable, omnipresent – in addition to the rest of those other "omni" things) is a: GOD -- OF -- LOVE. If that is so, then why did The Almighty allow Jesus to die on a cross when He could have rounded up legends of angels to wipe out the people who killed him? And how come Jonah was swallowed up by a whale and then belched out upon a beach three days later, and why was everyone but Noah, his family and two of every species wiped out by a great flood? (Those questions were for the Bible Beaters.) Where was Mohammed when those planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and that field in Pennsylvania? Was Jehovah (the God of the Jews) taking a siesta during the Holocaust? Why, in Africa, are we on the verge of the worst famine ever known to man? Why has the Aids Epidemic become the Aids PAN-demic? How could a "God of Love" allow little girls to be kidnapped, raped and murdered? What kind of "Loving God" is giving my dear friend (according to his doctors) only two more years of life, and why is this Good" God, this "Perfect" and "Fair" and "Just" God allowing a man (who is a mutual friend of mine and the sick man mentioned above) to suffer day-in-and-day-out with prostate cancer and probably die within the next month? Why? The eternal question. THE FIFTY MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION. Well, my children, I have come up with the answer. And if you all want to cough up the fifty-million dollars – because I REALLY need money right now – I will gladly provide you with enlightenment on what the God of the above-referenced religions gives us as His ANSWER. Am I mad at my God of "Love" that a man who has helped scores of people anonymously at great personal and financial sacrifice, saved lives, delivered babies, served his country for a long, long time and who, I suspect, has done things at great personal risk to preserve our freedoms, who has dedicated all of his being to everything that he has accomplished in his 48 years, worked harder at his job than any man that I’VE ever seen, and who has more personal integrity than that of one hundred people – that this exemplary man has been told that his condition is terminal? Yes! This spiritual giant with her unshakeable faith is ripping mad! And if this is how God "loves" us, then maybe it would just be better if he "loved" us a little less. Because "suffering" and "love" – at least in MY mind -- are totally incongruous. Like oil and water, they just don’t mix. They just don’t jibe. They just don’t go together. Yeah, I know that some religions say that you become "right and tight" with God (and thereby get what you want) by doing good deeds. But I could never buy into that line of thinking because what if I was good ALL DAY and then died while I was having a pornographic thought about my best friend’s husband? Other religions say that you are right with God simply because of your heritage. But I don’t fit into that category either because I’m 100% Irish, right down to my red hair – and that ethnic group is not the one that believes in the Godly-acceptance-by-heritage concept, anyway. One religion says that God will like you if you don’t eat cows, and yet another says that The Almighty REALLY likes you if you don’t eat any meat at all. There are a couple of religions that teach that one of the things that will bring you favor with God is to tell other people about him by going door-to-door, but I could NEVER do that one because after I rang the doorbell, I would be praying with fervor that the house’s occupants were not home! My belief is that we are exempted from God’s judgment by accepting the atoning sacrifice of His Son – who was also God in the flesh – the Trinity thing. And I’ve read about apparent flaws in the Bible. But the rules are few, and whatever good things I do are a reflection of my belief – and not a requirement for getting God to like me and give me what I ask for. It’s the "grace by faith" belief, whereby you can make personal requests of God and are looked upon through rose-colored glasses because of your acceptance of his free gift of his Son’s atonement for our past, present and future wrong-doings. And then some religions are still sacrificing poor little lambs to their god as a covering for their transgressions. Too barbaric. There are religions that believe that ultimately you actually become a god. One of them says that not only do you become a god, but you get your own planet and wife as a "packaged deal" and the wife is always pregnant. Never, never, never could I subscribe to that religion because for me, childbirth was like Bill Cosby described it: Laboring and delivering a baby is like taking your bottom lip, stretching it all the way over your head and attaching it to the back of your neck. I say, "No Thank You – and Get Lost," to THAT religion. And I’m also proud to say that I taught the father of my children much of the profanity he uses TO THIS DAY, 22 years ago as I was laboring over the birth of our first baby. And the beat goes on and on and on and on… Pick your own pulpit and find your own faith. Invent your own, if that’s what makes you happy. And I’m really not going to insist on payment for the answer to the fifty-million-dollar-question: Why does God allow suffering? The four religions mentioned above share some or all of the books of the Old Testament. And IT says that (and you’re going to find this somewhat disappointing) that God’s ways are ABOVE our ways, and His purposes (in this life) are BEYOND OUR FINDING OUT. What? That is like being expected to go off to fight for your country, but being too young to drink a beer! Simply not fair. After the sad, sad conversation with my friend was over, I thought, "What a let down. Can’t Truth at least enlighten us and give us reasons for why terrible things happen to good people?" Later, though, I had a thought about the time that I was driving a van full of kids home from the beach and something told me – it was like the LOUDEST thought that I have ever had -- to make SURE that there were no cars running the red light as I was about to turn left when I had the green arrow. I have never hit the brakes on a vehicle as hard as I did at that second. In fact, the van jerked so hard that several of the seatbelts literally became unbolted and kids flew all over the inside of the van. By just a fraction of an inch, I missed slamming into a drunk driver, who I came so close to that I could see the fillings in his lower teeth, who was probably going at least 70 miles per hour in a late model BOAT of a car that had run the red light. And had I not paid attention to that thought and checked for oncoming cars ONE MORE TIME, most certainly, we would all be dead. Was it good judgment? Maybe. Or was it a Divine intervention because no matter what the circumstances and physical logistics dictated, at that time, it was not our appointed hour to die? I think it was the latter. The lung specialist told me that they wouldn’t be able to save my youngest child when he was a baby. Too much was wrong with him. The doctor told me to "Let Him Go." But I told the doctor where HE could go and INSISTED that we intervene and FIX THE KID! And that KID (who just turned 21) works for free every summer in the orphanages of Romania, has done so since he was 14 years old, and has earned every single penny that it took to get him there and back all by himself by writing and sending out fundraising letters and working two jobs after school seven days a week. You can’t tell me that there is no God. And much of the time I do not understand or have an appreciation for His brand of "Love." I would handle things entirely differently and be a lot nicer about it. And I’m still ripping mad at Him for allowing my friend to be so sick. And I guess that I’m not going to get my own way in this one and will have to accept the fact that understanding is, evidently, not essential to this particular situation. And the closer I get to knowing the God that I believe in, the more I comprehend that faith is the evidence of things hoped for and the assurance of things unseen. And I am praying that the doctors will either fix my dear friend’s physical maladies or that he will just get better on his own. And that’s the biggest and the best thing that I can do. A-men. About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
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