Sackcloth and Ashes: Travels with Job (3)
He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21 NASB
Taken away – Heroism. The first response to disaster is heroism. Men and women are wired with the will to live and occasionally this will must be exercised under great duress. The world salutes these examples of bravery, not simply because they exhibit uncommon valor but because they remind us of what is best in our kind. We are a species that cares in extended community. This is quite an unusual fact about human beings. Many creatures on this planet exhibit heroic behavior in the face of threats to themselves or to immediate offspring. Few if any show regard for those outside the house. Human beings are remarkably communal, extending the boundaries of our concern to those whom we will never meet and perhaps never even know. In the face of tragedy, human beings often become the hands and feet of God for someone else.
Heroism, however, has limits. Physical capacity wears down. Resources are exhausted. Motivation flags. Heroes shine best when they are remembered for past acts, not when they return to life’s tedious routines. In the face of tragedy, timing is everything. The hero seems to occupy that slender moment when heightened awareness catapults grief to the foreground of life. The longer the unresolved disaster remains, the less heroism can accomplish.
Job is a hero of the faith. He begins with an exclamation of belief that few of us could have managed. Instead of the “Why me, God?” question, or the denial of his created status, Job vouches for the absolute authority of God. He immediately puts his “rights” on the shelf. He does what only a hero could do: he believes. His declaration that God gives and God takes away is heroic (Job 1:21). In spite of all the pain and suffering, Job endorses God. He doesn’t flinch in his commitment to God’s absolute sovereignty. He sees the reality of living. We come into this world with nothing. We leave with nothing. Everything in between is under the direct control of God. The rational man – a man of faith – will understand and worship.
I’m quite sure that at the beginning his wife and friends applauded Job’s bravery. Job’s faith instantly elevates him above the common believers. While his friends show sympathy and his wife provides comfort, I’m sure that they are already wondering how this man can keep it all together. We are spared the details of his personal agony. The story does not tell us about the heart crushing weeping at the death of all his children or the panic attacks in the face of total financial collapse. It doesn’t describe the deep sense of identity loss that accompanies destruction of family, fortune and fame. The story skips lightly over what were surely days and days of torturing emotion. Identifying with the pain is not the point of this story even though it takes but a moment’s reflection to personally feel what Job must have felt. Job’s heroic stand lifts him above what was surely a living hell. For this, we praise him.
But heroism doesn’t last, not even for those who offer applause.
Topical Index: heroism, Job 1:21
Three or four years into my family disaster, I began to realize that there was not going to be a point where it was going to ‘be better’. I needed to not only be able to understand the tragedy (thus reestablishing a purpose to my life that actually matched the changed reality of it), but I also needed endurance. “Courage”, someone wise said long ago, “consists of hanging on one minute longer”. I was counting minutes in my agonizing days, and sometimes seconds. To a child, in particular, where every second looms large, unremitting tragedy takes several lifetimes to live.
Hope is where you believe that there is a purpose, somehow, even if you cannot fathom it, and also where you believe there is an end to the bad stuff. Endurance wears a farsighted set of glasses, and it learns to discount the present, even while accepting the suffering of that present. This is a skill set that we are NOT born with, y’all! Endurance is a peculiar muscle that is born under pressure, but not all will develop this muscle under that pressure. Only those who learn to wear those farsighted glasses will be able to stand and endure, instead of break and run, or simply choose to seek relief in altered states of reality. It takes a sense of purpose to outlast the senselessness of tragedy. I needed to be shown purpose at the emotional level, where hope is forged. I needed a swan song.
Years later, I found the song by Leonard Cohen called “Heart With No Companion”. It described each and every member of my family (except me, of course) and what happened to them. I always thought it was written for me. We need to extend hope to one another in all places we see struggles, for self-generated hope does not seem to work so well. We need to have others extend faith when our own faith falters, and we need others to celebrate the long, hard struggle when we have lost all joy. Life is hard when it is met soberly and with love, for trust is continually being broken, and somebody is always left with the pieces. Let us sing to each other!
Heart With No Companion by Leonard Cohen (best rendition from the “Live” album)
Now I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast
And so shattered, it will reach you everywhere.
And I sing this for the captain whose ship has not been built, for the mother in
Confusion, her cradle still unfilled.
For the heart with no companion, for the soul without a king. for the prima
Ballerina who cannot dance to anything.
Through the days of shame that are coming, through the nights of wild distress,
Though your promise count for nothing, you must keep it nonetheless.
You must keep it for the captain whose ship has not been built. for the mother in
Confusion her cradle still unfilled.
For the heart with no companion, for the soul without a king, for the prima
Ballerina who cannot dance to anything.
P.S. I kept my promise, through grace, and held the line. My mama chose to die of cancer in an effort to reconnect with me, and it ultimately worked. She got to a place beyond her psychosis, and remembered who she was, and made her peace with herself, God, and me. I know I will see her, and my lost little brother, again. My siblings sobered up and became ready to face the family tragedy, and so we are slowly reconstructing our spiritual connections on a different platform. I have been learning how to address the inabilities of my dad and how to meet him where he is at, and extend another chance to him. I have learned to call no man my master and that has solved the misplaced trust thing, thus dissolving the rebellion that drove my schitzophrenia for so many years.
Suffering is about learning that the last platform for connection; for love, had some hole – some weakness – in it. Suffering hardens the material for a new bridge that hopefully is not constructed on such sinking sand. Amen.
Dear Laurita, Your words rang in my soul and heart. Thank you for the transparency and the insights that have helped shine a light on some of my current circumstances. “Yivarechekha Yehovah…”
Laurita
I can just echo on Leslee’ reply…
Laurita, Thanks for your words and the words to the song “Heart With No Companion”. I always say if Leonard Cohen didn’t capture an emotion or a truth in a song verse…it either doesn’t exist or it isn’t “note-worthy”. Can I get a “Hallelujah”?
As a Canadian I can hardly add anything to this but another Hallelujah Michael. You Want It Darker? What a swan song! We miss Cohen. I sure got it after your Friday post. But it is also said that it is darkest before the dawn. Dawn comes earlier and lasts longer in Florida than the rest of the U.S. doesn’t it.
It’s a year tomorrow that Cohen had his last bodily Hallelu-Yah. And it’s not dark enough, yet…
Laurita, you and Skip bring a fourth dimension into our lives each and everyday that is difficult to describe. We have (fortunately) never had to endure even remotely the kind of pain that you and many others have brought to this web site that makes it so compelling reading in order for me to try to understand my own pathetically easy-to-live life.
I don’t know where you find the strength to deal with it all. You are most definitely blessed beyond all measure by the King with the knowledge, wisdom and understanding that we all need in our lives each and every day. Long may you continue your brilliant insightful contributions to this blog. Thank you so much for your friendship with us. We wish you well for your wannbe new life.
Penny and George, you are very important to me, too. Thanks for all the books, too!
It is amazing to experience strength that does not come from yourself. It can be downright weird to learn that the place of Not Me is actually the ONLY place to stay! It took extreme exhaustion to teach me where that place even was, but I, like all humans, was afraid of helplessness because this world punishes the powerless. It is one thing to be helpless; it is another to lay down all the anger at the condition, the denial of it, the bitterness at the injustice, the need of others to care, the expectation that it will somehow magically disappear.
To continue on down Skip’s list, you then get to wade through the despair part, where you lose all your own natural-born (flesh) faith, too. That is VERY necessary! People confuse their own faith for the “faith OF Jesus” all the time. We are told specifically that faith is the gift of God and comes THROUGH Christ (the translations that say “faith IN Jesus” are mistranslating) and is the fruit of the Spirit too, but still the flesh believes that it has to manufacture the stuff. Only by experience of the inadequateness of our own faith, however, are any of us going to be convinced that we need to ask for His. This is what I found at the bottom of my well of despair. I despaired of EVER being able to ‘fix’ it. Great! Halleluah! I got cured of trying to fix it!
All false religions sell some version of works, and some sort of reliance on human-sourced faith, for they all count on the flesh to deliver the proselytes. All unconverted religion in the name of Christ does no different. In fact, the only time I have ever seen faith that was pure, were times of perfect persecution; in which the flesh has NO interest and so weeded itself back out. Trauma is heavy, and something has to go. The stuff that does not work ends up getting pitched over the side of the ship. Good riddance! Purifying comes only by fire, but not by sparks of our own kindling. We cannot burn our own dross. Pray to be purified; set out to pay the cost of loving the lost, and then fasten your seat belt!
Love to both of you and have a beautiful day. I will be sure to build an ‘upper room’ parking space in my wannabe new life just for your RV!
I too say hallelujah!!! Between reading November 5 in Utmost for His Highest and Laurita’s comment . My ,my what what a great double witness to my soul what joy.