Fire and flood, storm and pestilence, murder, strife, and rumours of strife surround us. We wonder, often and aloud, what will come of it, what will be our “new normal,” when this is “all over;” we look forward to the restoration of our fortunes, to our recovery. But we know, from our place in the cold ashes next to Job and his old friends, that whatever comes next, there is much that will not be undone.
We continue to sit with Job’s story through our Daily Office readings (today, Job 6:1; 7:1-21). He is a parable for the prophet, a paragon for the saint, a mouthpiece for the protest, a sibling to the sorrowful whose sighs are too deep for words.
“I read the book of Job. I don’t think God comes out of it well.”
Virginia Woolf
“Like Job, we want to present our case to God as to why this really shouldn’t happen to us, and we wait for an answer that may or may not come – at least with a clarity we want and feel we deserve.”
“If we search around the Gospels and Epistles we find the irony that we find freedom if we submit and become slaves, and then children of the Father in Christ. This is a complex teaching about obedience and submission.”
“Job’s friends were able to be still and silent with him and for him. His suffering was so great and inflicted on him in a way that no mere human could control that their presence was the only gift they could offer their friend.”
by Maria Evans Job 40:1,41:1-11 In our reading from Job, God is explaining divine might (and pushing at Job’s ego in the
How do you stay engaged when troubles come, when the answer isn’t the one you wanted? It may be that it’s that beautiful liturgy. But, it might also be a nagging question that you’d like to bring out into the open. It might be joy, or creativity, or weeping, or anger, or sadness. These are all ways that we stay engaged. And whatever it may be for you, it’s a step up from walking away.
We can be comforted by the fact that God is still the one God, a God of integrity, not divided. God’s heart, mind, and lips are always on the same page even when ours aren’t.