Natural Man, Religious Man and the recession

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    There’s an essay called “Born to Suf­fer” in monas­tic newslet­ter I get called ‘The Veil,’ (monastery list­ing HERE) and in it I read:

    Our suf­fer­ings come in many forms, both col­lec­tively as a peo­ple or a nation, and also as indi­vid­u­als. As a nation/people, we do not have to look far into the past to see the suf­fer­ings endured by those under the Com­mu­nist yoke or Turk­ish oppres­sion. The Church in coun­tries who recently were freed from Com­mu­nism is expe­ri­enc­ing renewed vigor and enthu­si­asm, in many ways hav­ing been puri­fied through those hor­ri­ble years of oppres­sion. Our own nation right now is going through an ‘eco­nomic cri­sis’ which is affect­ing every­one in one way or another, but per­haps this cri­sis will help to cure us of our greed as a nation.

    I’m glad to hear some­one say that. I’ve had that thought many times, but been afraid to say it out loud for fear that I’ll sound either insane or insensitive.

    And to be sure, I know peo­ple who don’t know how they’ll be able to keep a roof over their heads, and I don’t want to make things worse by reach­ing for some sound-byte of holi­ness to add to their anxiety.

    But … I’m glad that some­one was good enough and hon­est enough to say it, because I think it may turn out to be true. As a nation, I think this time of eco­nomic famine might be a gift for us. But only if we let it do its work, if we let it change us. Only if we can avoid some nat­ural impulses and even some righteous-sounding plat­i­tudes.

    To that end, I real­ize that this is one of those times when I have to reject the nar­ra­tive of politi­cians and pun­dits of all stripes. They have their job to do, but  believ­ing in them right now comes at a cost. Great and small, they all rep­re­sent the voice of Nat­ural Man, say­ing, “I rule myself. I make bad things go away. I take what I need.” Those who are in power will do what­ever they do, and I pray that God gives them wis­dom and dis­cern­ment. But as far as get­ting caught up in the panic that is incited every day, it doesn’t appear pos­si­ble. Or prof­itable, see­ing the con­ven­tional wis­dom seems to be that the only accept­able out­come is for us to bring about imme­di­ate rever­sal of our for­tunes (no mat­ter what the cost to future gen­er­a­tions) and go on liv­ing in a child­ish state of pros­per­ity with­out account­abil­ity for­ever. This is just mad­ness. It doesn’t reflect the truth of human his­tory or meet the test of an Ortho­dox sense of what our life on earth is about.

    And on the other hand, it’s not like it’s an easy thing to strike the right bal­ance, even if we turn away from Nat­ural Man. Wait­ing just next to him is Reli­gious Man, and he’s not much bet­ter. “If man was born to suf­fer­ing as the sparks fly upwards, then God wants us to suf­fer and blessed be the name of the Lord. God is cruel and awful, but we all deserve it, so we need to caper about as if we’re happy when we’re mis­er­able, because that’s what God wants, amen.” This is just Nat­ural Man with a dif­fer­ent hat. It’s just a lack of real belief that poses as piety. Of the things that we’re meant to take away from the Chris­t­ian under­stand­ing of suf­fer­ing, I can’t see any teach­ing jus­ti­fy­ing the idea that God is some bru­tal dic­ta­tor who hates it when we cry.

    The right way is some­thing I can glimpse, but strug­gle with con­stantly. The answer isn’t in fret­ting and believ­ing in our own strength and self­ish schemes, but it’s also not in an emo­tional equiv­a­lent to rit­ual disembowelment.

    The right way may be Job’s way. Early in the book of Job, he has a great state­ment of faith. As time goes on, he has to live in his agony, and then there’s dia­logue that goes on and on and on. (“Why me? Why did God let me be born? Why do bad peo­ple thrive? Why is God treat­ing me so unjustly?”) with his coun­selors pro­vid­ing all the weak­est sort of reli­gious answers to counter his cries from the heart. Both these things are hon­est responses from Job, but there’s some­thing lacking.

    There’s a turn at the end of the book that’s quick and sub­tle and yet so absolute that it res­onates still, all these cen­turies after it was writ­ten. Job has blessed God for his suf­fer­ing in 1:20, he has queried and cried and cursed his lot for the next 40 chap­ters. You would think he had said it all, and I have thought many times that I never would’ve made it so long with­out tak­ing refuge in the com­pany of either Nat­ural Man (“This is a mis­take! I bet­ter steal some­thing. I’m enti­tled to my rage because I’m sick and I hurt, and if I have to make other peo­ple suf­fer, that’s tough.”) or Reli­gious Man (“I know that I’m a right­eous per­son so God is actu­ally being unright­eous with me, but I will turn my heart to stone to show how accept­ing I am so He’ll make it go away.”).

    How much harder to let it in? To say nei­ther that we are unde­serv­ing of suf­fer­ing or to think that suf­fer­ing defines us, but that it is real, but that God is still the ulti­mate real­ity. I’ve heard a com­men­ta­tor say that the dif­fer­ence that hap­pens to Job in chap­ter 42 is that he finally nei­ther invents myths about his suf­fer­ing nor rails against it. He knows the truth of the suf­fer­ing and then … takes it from God’s hand. That’s the pro­found moment that the whole book is about. What it takes to bring even a good man to this place is enough for us to won­der what it would take for us ever to get there.

    A reces­sion? Or worse? It may be. How much has our gen­er­a­tion — even we good church-goers — thrown in our lot with the world and believed that the com­fort­able life was the good life? If the love of mam­mon is now to be revealed as a false god which actu­ally brings us nei­ther com­fort nor good­ness, will we ever really come to the point where both Nat­ural Man and Reli­gious Man aban­don us? That is the most fright­en­ing, most naked point we ever come to — know­ing our­selves truly and decid­ing whether we want to know God truly or not. Can we come to Job’s point of cri­sis and choose wisely?

    We may all get to find out.


    Related posts:

    1. NYT news flash: There are reli­gious peo­ple out there!
    2. Oprah and her reli­gious beliefs feelings
    3. Prayer: won­der and despair
    4. Begin­nings and The Big Finale
    5. Spend­ing our way out of the recession

    February 7th, 2009 | Grace | 2 Comments |

2 Responses and Counting...

  • s-p 02.07.2009

    Sober­ing post, Grace. Can any of us truly say with St. Paul, “I have learned to be con­tent in what­ever state I am in, whether in riches or poverty.…” with­out hav­ing to actu­ally expe­ri­ence them. We have the illu­sion we’ll, like Job, accept both bless­ing and adver­sity from God for our spir­i­tual growth but our def­i­n­i­tion of adver­sity is a long wait at Out­back I’m afraid.

  • Grace

    The long wait at Out­back: LOL. Boy, do I hear that. I feel con­stantly aware of my lim­i­ta­tions. And though all the Ortho­dox read­ing from the fathers and the lives of the saints is still the right thing to do, I can’t help but notice how it’s given me a bet­ter qual­ity of lip ser­vice — very cor­rect and holy-sounding. Good thing Lent is com­ing, huh? Noth­ing like hav­ing to actu­ally DO some­thing to put all those pious words to the test.

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