What about evil?
In my pilgrimage from cynicism to faith, gratitude is my final frontier.
In case you’re new to this blog, I have one exhortation: read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. This book is “a celebration of grace and a recognition of the power of gratitude”—in the most powerful and compelling language I have ever read. It is my current obsession (besides Hunger Games) and progression in my spiritual journey.
 |
| Photo credit: Ann Voskamp |
Ann’s words have challenged my heart, but they’ve also challenged my mind. She’s addressed gratitude in the face of injustice, gratitude in the face of the mundane, and gratitude in the face of pain.
But today I ask, what about evil?
Ann writes that ALL IS GOOD. All is grace.
She says, “All God makes is good. Can it be that that which seems to oppose the will of God is actually used of Him to accomplish the will of God? That which seems evil only seems so because of perspective, the way the eyes see the shadows. Above the clouds, the light never stops shining.”
That doesn’t sit well with me.
She asks could it be, “that which feels like trouble, gravel in the mouth, is only that—feeling? What if faith says all is good…I think it. But do I really mean it?”
In my world, there are some things that don’t just feel evil; they are evil.
Death and war and rape and genocide and a million other forms of selfishness and injustice that pepper our world with pain. How are those moments grace, gifts?
I relate to Elie Wiesel, Jewish survivor of the Holocaust and Nobel Peace Prize winner, when he says,
“I feel like screaming, howling like a madman so that the world, the world of the murderers, might know it will never be forgiven.”
Sometimes I hear awful stories and I think I could scream for eternity and it wouldn’t be okay.
I think of catching and stopping warlord Joseph Kony. I think of the incredible victory that will be. But the tens of thousands of children who have been abducted and forced to murder, scream out to me that it will still not be okay.
That it will never be okay.
But God is reconciling ALL THINGS?
I can’t mean it. I can’t.
Not yet. Or maybe not ever.
 |
| Photo credit: The Christian Science Monitor |
I can see good and hope and love. I see things being made new everyday. As Gungor says, I know God makes beautiful things out of dust and out of us. But I can’t call it all beautiful—not in my macro-theology.
In my personal micro-theology I can believe it. I can name my own gifts, my graces. I can name my hurt and pain and walk the path to wholeness, to redemption, to beauty.
I can consent to each of us, on our own micro-level, acknowledging the gifts.
But I refuse to gift-wrap the world’s pain in glib statements of gratitude without the victims’ approval. Like my bloggy friend Adrian Waller commented the other day, I refuse to say, “God causes bad things that are "really" for good.”
I refuse to say that it is okay that this world is so messed up.
I used to think that meant I couldn’t believe in God. Or that I didn’t believe in God.
I used to think I couldn’t be angry and grateful at the same time. That I couldn’t be angry and faithful.
But the other thing I learned from Elie Weisel is that you can.
In fact, I can be angry with God precisely because of my faith in Him.
Elie writes, “I have never renounced my faith in God. I have risen against His justice, protested His silence and sometimes His absence, but my anger rises up within faith and not outside it.”
And so today—from within faith—I wrestle. I protest a world with warlords like Joseph Kony and hot topic issues such as sex trafficking and child soldiers. I protest the poverty I have seen in the city dumps of Nicaragua and Guatemala and in my own neighborhood in San Diego. I protest the less sexy atrocities of lack of access to land and food and crops that I encounter every day at my work. For a few minutes, I let my growing fears that I’m a Capitol dweller in the circus of the 21st century Hunger Games consume me, and I—in the same breath—I ask,
“Where are you, God?”and “Please rain down your GRACE.”
Amen.
***
Can you relate to this tension between anger and gratitude? Do you think it's possible to be angry at God and remain faithful? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
It's Complicated
With all of the #kony2012 and Invisible Children hubbub and hero worship and criticism and rebuttals (have you ever wondered what a ‘buttal’ is that we could retort it?) it’s enough to make your head spin.
The one thing that it seems everyone in the twittersphere and the blogosphere and hipstersphere can agree on is that IT’S COMPLICATED.
We don’t want it to be. We’d rather have easy answers and tangible results.
We’d rather be seduced.
As my favorite snarky aid blogger (his blog is no longer public access which is why there is no link) put it, “we’ve become totally seduced by the belief that solving the basic problems of the world can be done cheaply and easily.”
And the seducer?
NGOs. Charities that flaunt such irresistible slogans as “ ‘98 cents of your dollar goes directly to beneficiaries’, ‘your $100 buys a poor family a cow and gets them out of poverty’, or ‘feel good about making a difference while on vacation.’ ”
Saving the world is just one click—and your credit card information—away.
It’s not just Invisible Children.
We’ve fallen head over heels with programs that boast of tangible results, low overhead, and flashy campaigns to end the world’s problems, but the truth is, it’s complicated.
As a staff member of an NGO that writes about the difference our organization is making in the lives of the rural poor, I can’t figure out if I’m the seducer or the seducee (not to be confused with the Sadducees of the New Testament). When I report on the use of grant funds I want to tell funders that we’ve met all of our objectives, that lives are being transformed, that their money is already making a difference. I want to say X number of families no longer live in poverty or have hardships.
But it’s just not true. Sometimes we don’t meet all of our objectives because of drought or economic downturn or political unrest. Sometimes responding to immediate needs or adapting to a rapidly changing environment is just more important. Sometimes we make mistakes, but we learn valuable lessons from our mistakes as well.
This last week I’ve been frustrated with much of the Invisible Children tactics, but I’ve also been impressed with their willingness to engage in conversation. Their willingness to learn from their mistakes.
If the conversation ends with pitching in $30 to IC and settling back into our self-centered, materialistic ways, we’ve missed the point. If we cynically write off Kony and Uganda and how we can make a difference merely because IC has the marketing prowess to create a movement, we’ve also missed the point.
Unsuspecting or cynical, we haven’t really engaged. That’s what gets me.
In my recent post Sound Bites of Justice, I wrote about the complications of speaking on behalf of the voiceless, wondering if in my own small scale work of marketing and social media advocating is really building up the dignity of those I seek to serve.
This last week the question resurfaced, “are we giving voice to the voiceless or shouting so loudly that even those with a voice are being drowned out?”
I don’t know the answer.
But I’m glad the aid world and the hipster world and the celebrity world are asking it.
In a culture of quick fixes and seduction, that question is something I think we should fall in love with.
***
For more resources on the Invisible Children controversy check out Rachel Held Evans’ grace-filled and encompassing post: http://rachelheldevans.com/invisible-children-kony-2012-resources.
To read my post on Solidarity and Advocating for the Voiceless, click here.