Fragment -- #30

Fragment -- #30

[1997] Each narrative we created in the Miami effort to assist the cocaine-abusing women developed around the same set of questions -- Who is this mother? What does she value? How does she make sense of her experiences? In what social context does she live? How does she view parenting? What aspirations does she have for herself? for her child/ren? How does she define key words (e.g., hope, joy, success, power, freedom, fear)? How does she view her involvement with drugs (e.g., a fact, a recreation, a coping mechanism, a threat to well-being)? Does she want to be drug-free? Does she want her child/ren to be drug-free? What barriers does she face? Why does she try or not try to benefit from available resources? Why do her attempts succeed or fail? How does she define success or failure?

Here is one mother’s story. She enrolled in the program in 1991. We completed her life narrative in 1996. A fictitious name was chosen to protect the mother’s confidentiality.

Lakesha was born in 1962 to what she remembers as ‘a loving family’. She was the fifth child in a family of eight daughters and one son. “We had a good family life. Both of my parents worked. We’d go to Orlando three or four times a year. We had family picnics. We were involved in the church.” Lakesha fondly remembers going to youth camps and being president of the youth choir. She did well in school. “I admired my history teacher. She always wanted to take me home for the weekend, but my parents never let me go. She cared. She listened to me.” Lakesha recalls her father being excessively proud of her accomplishments. But his discipline could be severe. “Now I catch my five-year-old boy hitting at me and I try to talk to him rather than beat him. A beating, it don’t do anything but make them more rebellious. I got four or five of them a day. It made me more rebellious than ever.” She remembers enduring numerous belt-whippings, in spite of her efforts to please him. “My mom was a homebody, afraid of society. She was fragile and easy to manipulate. But she never abandoned us.”

Lakesha and her family lived in Liberty City, a section northwest of downtown Miami. Since the mid-1980s, Liberty City (along with neighboring Overtown) has been a drug-burdened and dangerous place to live. As a street-living friend recently reminded Lakesha, “There is no hope for people in Liberty City”. But during her childhood, Liberty City had not yet so deteriorated. Neighbors watched out for each other. Unemployment had not yet become the norm. Teenage pregnancy had not yet become epidemic. Illicit drug dealing had not yet become the dominant ‘business’. Only the older generation now remembers how Liberty City used to be.

Lakesha rebelled before reaching her teens, often slipping away from home when her father was out of town. “I don’t think my family was very dysfunctional. I was the dysfunctional one. I wanted things, but was either too young to have what the older kids had or too old for what the younger kids had. Attention. All along I was looking for attention. I started cutting school in the first grade -- hanging out in the park, going to the house for a snack when school was out, and then taking off again on my bike. My parents never knew.”

Lakesha had the first of her six abortions -- a home abortion -- when she was just twelve years old. “I was five months along. My mom called in a midwife. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. The midwife inserted something she said would make the baby come out. The baby was fully developed. It looked good. They tried to pump it, but nothing happened. When it was all over, my mom went on to work at the dress factory.”

By age thirteen, Lakesha had permanently left home. “I moved in with an older girl who lived three blocks away. My father had warned me to avoid ‘project kids’ because ‘they turn out to be nobody’. I told him, ‘You can’t pick my friends for me. If I think you are going to try, then I’m getting out of here’. That’s really what pushed me down the wrong street. I wanted to prove I didn’t have to do what he said. I knew young women were dying out there, but I did not feel at risk. My older brother regularly checked on me. I continued to go to school. My parents would pick me up every Sunday morning to go to church. I was having the time of my life. A fake ID made it possible to hang out with the big girls. Older guys paid me special attention. I was going to be someone’s princess.” Lakesha was using beer by age twelve; marijuana by age thirteen; cocaine, by age fifteen; crack, by age seventeen. “I was transporting drugs for some older men, giving them to girlfriends, when I decided to try them.”

Lakesha dropped out of high school six months shy of graduation. “I was living two very different lives. I was frantic, scared. I think my drug use put me back a lot. I knew by that time that I was in danger, but I thought I could always get back to safety. I was smoking crack every day. I just marked time -- didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, didn’t care. Then the guy I was with was shot dead and I blamed myself. At first I thought about suicide. Then I tried to recover myself. An older physically handicapped man in Bay Point supported me.” She eventually joined the Job Corp, earned her high school equivalency diploma, and stayed clean for over two years. Then a cousin visiting from New York City wanted to try crack. Lakesha remembers warning herself, but decided to supply her cousin. Soon after, she was back on the street. She met at a party the man who would father her three children -- all cocaine-exposed. They have sustained a stormy relationship together since 1985. She enrolled in a RN program at Florida College of Business, but never completed the program.

Lakesha became pregnant with her first live-born child while living in Connecticut (1988). “We didn’t know anybody there, so we came back to Miami. I was really smoking big time. I realize now that I was trying to smoke myself to death.” She delivered a baby girl at twenty-eight weeks gestation. After six months in an outpatient treatment program, she remained clean for a while, attended follow-up meetings, and found a job. However, she had started using again (1991) just before becoming pregnant with her second child (the delivery after which she was enrolled in the intervention program the University of Miami neonatologist had just started). “DCF (Florida’s Department of Children and Families) kept my case open. I’m busting my ass to try and make sure I stay halfway right. I thought maybe this time I had really crossed the line. Then I learned about a woman with three crack-exposed kids who was using, but DCF closed her case. That was the excuse I used to get high. If she can get high, I can too. I lost my pride. I was still getting high thirty minutes before I went into labor.” She delivered a baby girl at thirty-five weeks gestation. "At first, I thought Baby Steps (the name of the University of Miami program) was just one more part of ‘the system’. I refused to sign any papers. I think I told the person she could sign it. After a nurse explained a bit more about the program, I enrolled.” Though Lakesha faithfully kept the appointments for her children, she was not yet receptive to efforts to engage her in intensive case management.

DCF had referred Lakesha to a short-term residential treatment program during this pregnancy. After another few clean months, she again relapsed. “I remember coming to a Christmas party at Baby Steps the day I started getting high again. My kids were dressed in red and green. Later that day, I went around my neighborhood, running my mouth about getting high.”

Now carrying a third cocaine-exposed baby, Lakesha arranged for intake at a different residential treatment program in order to strengthen her chance of retaining custody. She delivered a full-term baby boy (1993). When she was turned down from yet another residential treatment program because she had not ‘hit rock bottom’, Lakesha finally turned in desperation to her Baby Steps case manager who had remained diligent in her attempts to engage Lakesha in spite of repeated resistance. “If she had not been at my doorstep early that morning, I don’t know what would have happened. I begged her for help.” The Baby Steps case manager succeeded in getting Lakesha into a recently established nine-to-eighteen month residential treatment program (i.e., The Village) that was based on the therapeutic strategy of making the inside experience as stressful as possible in order to empower the women for being on the outside. The case manager remained in regular communication with Lakesha during these months and served as a resource person for the treatment staff. While at The Village, Lakesha began to make plans for entering Florida International University with the hope of getting a social work degree.

Since successful completion of The Village’s program (July 1994), Lakesha has been clean. However, avoiding relapse has not been easy. Housing, childcare, and employment have presented obstacles that she, with her Baby Steps case manager’s assistance, has had to overcome. “It was very difficult at first, after leaving the structure of The Village. My expectations were too high. I had to move in with my mother. I still live from paycheck to paycheck. I often feel stuck between dependence on the system’s financial aid and the independence I know I need. The scary part is relaxation. When I relax, I relapse. The pre-Village world is not necessarily inside you, but it’s all around you, closing in on you. Why can’t there be a half-way house for women who are really trying to change?”

While in the treatment program, Lakesha was diagnosed with a form of clinical depression (which is responding well to medications). Knowledge of this condition could have made her more dependent on ‘the system’. Instead, she has tried to stay employed -- which has meant losing food stamps, a subsidized apartment, AFDC, and Medicaid. She has battled through periods of suicidal ideation and debilitating depression with the assistance and occasional intervention of the Baby Steps staff. She knows that the realization of her aspirations necessitates long-term independence. She has earned certification as a child-care provider. She is dealing responsibly with past student loans from a training program that went bankrupt. She is now working as a recruiter in a program serving HIV+ drug-using women in Liberty City. The Village asked her to serve on its Advisory Board. Lakesha has become a model PTA mom. She was selected by her children’s school as “Mother of the Year”. She goes to all the meetings, volunteers at the school, goes on field trips, helps out in the classroom and the library. “When my daughter saw me one day in the school library, she shouted, ‘Mom! Mom!’ It was really nice. It made me feel like gold. I love my children and now I love me.”

When asked what she shares with mothers in life circumstances similar to her experience, Lakesha answered, “If I can change my life, anybody can change their lives. I want them to think, ‘Maybe I can do it. She did it and she’s got those kids. She was right there on the same street as me.’ You can fix yourself up and look OK on the outside, but be all messed-up on the inside.”

When asked what Baby Steps has meant to her, Lakesha explained, “Baby Steps has been the stepping stone for me. Without Baby Steps, I would still be high and running or even dead right now. I didn’t have nobody to care for me. Baby Steps is like somebody’s on my side. Baby Steps can make you change, make you a success.”

Fragment -- #29

Fragment -- #29

[1997] For four years (1993-97), I worked with a neonatologist at the University of Miami School of Medicine. My work with her – which included three days onsite in Miami each month -- began during my Vermont years when a mutual friend recommended me to her and extended through my years in New Orleans with the LSU Ob/Gyn Department.

“Dr. Brown, I am losing the vision. I am stumbling as a leader. My staff is floundering. I am exhausted. What can you say or do that would matter?”

Just a few minutes into this April 1993 conversation – our first – my new physician friend made it clear she was far beneath the heroic glitter often associated with high-achieving academic physicians. This no-nonsense neonatologist had neither time for nor interest in softing platitudes about medicine. She knew better and intended to determine quickly if I did. The look in her eyes said, “Think twice before answering.”

Working with this neonatologist and her staff over the next several years shook my foundations – in the heart as much as in the mind. For the first time, championing individuals trapped and desperate in oppressive circumstances carried for me a real element of personal danger. The target population – cocaine-abusing women living in a violent part of Miami who were prematurely delivering cocaine-exposed babies.

• Individual Factors. These women and their children were at serious risk to undervalue education, to see women treated as inferior to men, to absorb the language and assumptions of racial prejudice, to underutilize primary healthcare services, to lack proper nourishment, to thirst for genuine attention, to cease to dream. Childlike resiliency, concreteness, and a sense of humor insulated them somewhat from the full impact of their circumstances.
  
• Family Factors. These women and their children were at serious risk to carry parenting responsibilities for younger siblings, to suffer physical and/or psychological abuse, to witness/experience domestic violence, to not know one or both parents, to lack family support for educational achievement, to never have celebrated a birthday, to feel betrayed, to regard adolescent pregnancy as normal. The incidence of adolescent pregnancy could, ironically, be reinforced by family members (whose behavior toward the pregnant girl often became dramatically more gentle and affirming) and by the expanded availability of societal resources. Many of these women desperately wanted to retain parental responsibility for their children. Few, if any, wanted their children to experience their way of life. Extended family members (esp., grandmothers) often shielded their children from at least the most severe disadvantages and conveyed to them that they were loved and wanted.
  
• Education Factors. These women and their children were at serious risk to have attended school irregularly, to have been taught by demoralized teachers, to have attended improperly equipped schools, to have formed poor study habits, to have had discipline problems, to have lost their intellectual curiosity.
  
• Peer Factors. These women and their children were at serious risk to form relationships based on ‘macho’, to link self-image to strength, to resort quickly to violence when in conflicts, to be taunted toward destructive misbehavior, to be suspicious of others, to find street-gangs attractive. Community-based athletic programs, religious organizations, substance-abuse support groups (e.g., TRUST Groups), and community-based social organizations (e.g., Big Brother/Sister, YMCA/YWCA, Boys/Girls Club) made constructive peer relationships at least a possibility.
  
• Neighborhood Factors. These women and their children were at serious risk to lack a sense of pride in their community, to live in deteriorated housing, to change residence frequently, to regard violence as normal, to have a street name, to ‘work’ on a lower rung of the drug-world ladder, to have a family member and/or neighbor who had died a violent death or who had AIDS, to regard the police as the enemy. Their neighborhoods did vary in the degree of risk they posed. Even in the most hostile neighborhoods, local groups -- some formally established, others ‘street-organized’ -- could be found working to insure a measure of safety and encouragement for these women and their children.
  
• Society/Media Factors. These women and their children were at serious risk to have no sense of membership in the larger society, to have never visited other parts of the city, to have learned by watching closely the adults around them how to ‘work the system’, to have a surreal worldview shaped by television, to be influenced by militant music, to place no value on newspapers or news magazines. Harsh predispositions against them -- widespread in the larger society -- made interactions across social lines predictably adversarial. Sustained efforts to introduce resources and options (e.g., businesses, vocational institutes, and community colleges) could be found attempting to create fresh start opportunities.
  

In that first conversation, my new physician friend spoke candidly about her struggle to launch the second of two multi-million dollar federal grants for which she was the principal investigator. Soon after beginning her academic year in the late 1980s, she had become alarmed by the incidence of babies being admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Jackson Hospital after testing positive at birth for cocaine exposure. When discharged, their mothers took them home to Liberty City or Overtown . . . inner-city wastelands on the northwestern edge of Miami that were plagued by violence, depressed by grinding poverty, organized around an illicit drug ‘industry’, threatened by devastating sexually transmitted disease epidemics.

Headlines from major cities across the country warned of frightening ‘crack baby’ scenarios. Scientific data were needed to test the escalating societal fears or to rein in the speculation. Her first federal grant allowed her to organize a research team to track the medical and psycho-social consequences of cocaine exposure for @300 babies through their first five years of life. Responses from her department chair and colleagues were supportive. The research would be clearly scientific. The subject matter was pediatric, if not neonatal. Her academic career would be enhanced.

A year later, she successfully added a second federal grant to fund a five-year intervention project designed to break into the personal and parental dysfunction of @120 cocaine-abusing mothers whose babies were compromised by premature birth as well as by cocaine-exposure during pregnancy. Responses from her department chair and colleagues chilled considerably. Little hard data would be generated. Few scientifically derived conclusions would result. They considered the subject matter public health, not medical; for social workers, not neonatologists. Her academic career would stall.

She pressed on. She had seen too much to turn back without sacrificing her integrity. She had access to these mothers at an emotionally receptive moment. She had an idea that just might work:

Premature birth put these babies at risk for more reasons than cocaine exposure. If we concentrate for five years on the interests of the babies, might the wary mothers notice the value we are placing on their children? Might we eventually break through their suspicion that we are yet one more hollow gesture from ‘the system’ with the intent to manipulate? Might they stay near enough for our example to strengthen in them the maternal instincts necessary to justify their keeping their children?

But moving this noble idea into reality proved rough. Shortly after the proposal was funded, two medical school collaborators abruptly abandoned her leadership team, pulling critical legs out from under the project. Then Hurricane Andrew slammed through Miami, leaving the city in utter chaos. Six months later, signs of recovery in the city were still scant. With the cocaine-abusing mothers scattered by the storm and difficult to locate, her turf battles with other researchers intensified. And her case management staff had completely turned over.

My first task was to help my new physician friend regroup. We went back to basics. Could she answer the five questions of a forceful/centering mission statement – i.e., Who/what are we? What do we do? For whom do we do what we do? To what end do we do what we do? Within/upon what values do we do what we do? Only then could she determine what (if any) goals were still feasible.

We tested her answers during a two-day retreat with the entire staff. In fact, their being a ‘staff’ was a crucial issue. Each one knew how to do just enough to stay employed. But their leader needed more. She needed them to be a staff analogous to the staffs used by the hikers on the Appalachian Trail I saw passing through our Vermont village each fall. Why did she need them to ‘buy into’ the project? Because the intervention could work only if we all shared a respect for the cocaine-abusing mothers that would protect us from keeping them at a safe distance, that would steer us away from prejudging them, that would challenge us not to leave them conveniently ‘boxed’.

We proposed to rebuild the intervention project around writing life narratives with/about the mothers. Each mother’s story was badly broken. But it was her story. And we were convinced there was more to each mother than her cocaine addiction. Piecing together these narratives meant being fully present with the mothers. The case managers and I had to risk going again and again to where the mothers lived – to ‘Dirt City’ under an I-95 overpass where homeless individuals and families lived in crates, to the women’s jail cells, to treatment centers, to public housing apartments flanked by drug runners and heavily-armed drug guards, to abandoned lots dotted with packing boxes for shelter, to elementary schools isolated by towering chain-linked security fences, to corner stores that fronted for drug deals, to cocaine dens, to . . . . In doing so, most of us had to clean out biases deep within ourselves – biases against the poor and against African-Americans -- that had never before been so disturbed or challenged.

The gamble -- that enlarging our hearts with respect for the mothers as survivors would trump burdening our hearts with insight into the layers of utter tragedy carried by the mothers. The gamble -- that a passionate vision would overcome crippling burn out. So we restarted the project. We all wrestled with defining success. We all questioned whether trying to keep these mothers and their children together was the right thing to do. We all cared.

Fragment -- #28

[1996] I wrote these reflections for the chair of the LSU Ob/Gyn Department when he was particularly discouraged about the lack of medical school administrative support as we sought to separate the department from fraudulent entanglements.

(1) Stress is inevitable and often irresolvable when trying to live with integrity and compassion ‘face to face with the world’. (2) Such stress originates from the struggle between honorable and dishonorable values/goals. Such stress can/must be managed. Such stress cannot be eliminated/avoided without retreating from concrete places associated with being ‘face to face with the world’. Such stress may not be vindicated in the lifetime of the one stressed. (3) Such stress is increased and made more complex by pride, impatience, fatigue, duplicity, fear, guilt, denial, anger, ingratitude in the attitudes/behavior of the one stressed. (4) Unmanaged stress physically kills by overtaxing the body. Unmanaged stress spiritually kills by isolating the one stressed, by exposing the conditional/superficial friendships/alliances trusted by the one stressed, by luring the one stressed into behavior that contradicts his/her honorable values/goals, by trapping the one stressed in a paradigm by which s/he sees schemes on every side, by narrowing reality to the ‘tragic’ and the ‘crooked’ for the one stressed, by numbing the sensitivities and fading the memories of the one stressed, by tempting the one stressed with a prideful sense of being martyred. (5) Stress can be managed by the discovery of and habitual return to symmetry between engagement and contemplation/meditation. Through such discipline, the one stressed seeks to recover humility, modesty, patience, sight, anticipation, thankfulness, forgiveness, self-respect, memory, fellowship, peace.

Fragment -- #27 – ‘Community’

[The following 1994 ‘fragment’ describes four ways I experience (and understand) ‘community’. These four ways are presented in order on a spectrum from unconditional to conditional and reflect a sequence from praxis to reflection.]

The first and primary experience of ‘community’ for me occurs whenever/wherever I am unconditionally ‘face to face with the world’. The specifics and peculiarities of this experience of ‘community’ necessarily and richly vary. This experience occurs whenever/wherever I take the risk to initiate and sustain a relationship, a covenant, a friendship that is genuine and without regard for return.

The experience of ‘community’ for me that is nearest to this first and primary experience of ‘community’ forms when I discover others whose way of being ‘face to face with the world’ so resonates with mine that when together we support each other in our shared strengths, our shared weaknesses, our struggle with loneliness. The shared way of being creates and defines this experience of ‘community’. How we have come to this way of being does not define or determine having a place in this ‘community’. This distinction encourages and protects the liberty of each one to speak freely (i.e., without competition) about the traditions, convictions, and resources that make his/her journey special. The shared way of being certifies the validity of each one’s ‘story’. No one in this experience of ‘community’ hears another’s story with a disposition to criticize, undermine, or correct.

The conversations in this experience of ‘community’ nearest to being ‘face to face with the world’ may disclose that some (perhaps many) interpret their life’s core/center -- which is essentially human in focus -- in transcending terms. Such disclosure should be included in the chronicling and communication that overflows from the experience of ‘community’ nearest to being ‘face to face with the world’. Participants are free to explore the proposed association of ‘phenomenal’ and ‘noumenal’ realities that inspire awe and contemplation. The point of reference remains the shared resolve to be ‘face to face with the world’. This more intimate experience of ‘community’ nurtures a perspective that includes room for doubt, ensures a healthy penitence, is modest (i.e., can envision sacrificing its existence to a higher cause), values leavening hiddenness.

If these three experiences of ‘community’ form consistent with the traditions and resources of the participants’ ‘religious’ journeys, then recourse to an experience of ‘community’ within the ‘religious’ sphere becomes appropriate. Given the ‘outsider’ position, the tendency toward idolatry within the ‘religious’ sphere, and the lack of time to spend this far removed from being ‘face to face with the world’ (i.e., the first and primary experience of ‘community’) – such fourth-order experiences of ‘community’ within the ‘religious’ sphere are most likely to be found either in gatherings perceived to be marginal and/or unorthodox by the larger ‘religious’ sphere.

This layered experience of ‘community’ hinges on a view of being human that is not satisfied apart from attention to the human geist and that, therefore, anticipates the possibility of authentic encounters with every human being. This layered experience of ‘community’ promotes a way of being in which the intent (L., to reach or to stretch) is:

To hope rather than to despair
To give rather than to take
To unite rather than to divide
To enrich rather than to deplete
To care rather than to ignore
To heal rather than to harm
To listen empathetically rather than to speak presumptuously
To educate rather than to force
To trust rather than to suspect
To build on strengths rather than to build on weaknesses
To be thankful rather than to be demanding
To forgive rather than to seek revenge
To revere all life rather than to devalue any life

Fragment -- #26

[The following thoughts were prepared for an April 1993 presentation I was invited to give in Vermont to the Norwich Congregational Church.]

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day chosen marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – widely considered the most courageous act of Jewish resistance to Hitler’s strategy of mass murder. Fifty years ago today, the Nazi forces were making final plans for the next day’s assault. The previous twenty-one months had witnessed the virtual disappearance of Warsaw’s Jewish population. 100,000 Jews had already died of disease, starvation, slave labor, or execution. 300,000 had been deported to concentration camps. The beleaguered survivors of the torn families prepared bunkers and weapons. These poorly equipped and starving fighters would hold off a powerful German occupation force for several weeks before finally succumbing to the inevitable.

Holocaust Remembrance Day -- this special day’s title recognizes our ability to look back, to remember past experiences in and beyond our lives. Before attempting to focus on ‘holocaust’, a few thoughts about memory seem in order. “Why do we remember?” “How should we remember?” “What if we do not remember?” -- these are critical questions. Remembering enlarges our sense of self as we reestablish membership with past experiences. The past is, as Tevye sang in Fiddler on the Roof, “laden with happiness and tears”. It is a sign of maturity to remember without falling under the tyranny of the past or without manipulating the past.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – executed April 1945 by the Nazis for his complicity with the 20 July 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life -- proposed that we should remember the past with the dispositions of thanksgiving and contrition (a theme frequently referenced in his prison letters). I would add honesty, vulnerability, and courage.

I did not grow up remembering the Holocaust in this way. My sense of self was first challenged by the Holocaust seventeen years ago. I was traveling for the first time in Europe. I was alone. I took the earliest train out of Munich for the few kilometers to the location of what remained of Dachau concentration camp. The gates into the camp were open. The grounds were silent. No one else had arrived. I walked quietly into the past. The photographs, the lectures, the memoirs, the documentaries to which I had been exposed were transformed into a shocking consciousness of the horror that shook my foundations. Curiosity quickly gave way as I made the decision to cross that threshold in remembering beyond which the past irreversibly impacts the present. Gawking was no longer a risk. However, looking and listening was awkward, embarrassing. It even felt disrespectful. Honest words are painful.

The word ‘holocaust’ -- which gained English currency in the mid-1950s -- literally means completely consumed by fire. What images do we associate with ‘holocaust’? Piles of shoes/glasses/suitcases, nakedness, starvation, rape, experimentation, dulled eyes, beatings, disease, ashes, mass graves? Or perhaps brutality, slaughter, innocence, dehumanization, darkness?

Where were their friends? Who were their friends? Eli Wiesel -- a Holocaust survivor and now persistent witness -- has said that the opposite of life is not death; the opposite of life is indifference.

The images of the Holocaust correspond strikingly with the image of Job. Though (or perhaps because of being) personally hedged about with excessive good fortune, he had dreaded catastrophe (3:24). The initial blows come without warning -- loss of children and property. Lamenting in sackcloth and ashes, he grits out what previously had been an easy prayer: “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Then his health fails. Weeks and months pass. He shrinks to a shadow of his former self. He can get no relief from the open sores that cover his frail body. He eats little, as food has lost its taste. Nightmares keep him from deep, refreshing sleep. Acquaintances and family abandon him. Some forget. Others gawk and ridicule. His foul breath offends even his wife.

The three individuals for whom Job had reserved the most intimate meaning of ‘friend’ meet together and hurry to their stricken friend. When close enough to see but far enough not yet to be noticed, they hesitate in horror. They cannot recognize Job. After steadying themselves, they approach their friend. For seven days and nights, they sit with him in silence. Finally, Job utters words of pain and despair. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar stumble and fail. Job senses their fear and feels their attack on the one thing left to him -- his integrity. He says:

14When desperate people give up on God Almighty, their friends, at least, should stick with them. 15But my brothers are fickle as a gulch in the desert – 16one day they’re gushing with water from melting ice and snow cascading out of the mountains, 17but by midsummer they’re dry, gullies baked dry in the sun. 18Travelers who spot them and go out of their way for a drink, end up in a waterless gulch and die of thirst. 19Merchant caravans from Tema see them and expect water, tourists from Sheba hope for a cool drink. 20They arrive so confident – but what a disappointment! They get there, and their faces fall! 21And you, my so-called friends, are no better – there’s nothing to you! One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear. 22It’s not as though I asked you for anything – I didn’t ask you for one red cent – 23nor did I beg you to go out on a limb for me. So why all this dodging and shuffling? 24Confront me with the truth and I’ll shut up, show me where I’ve gone off the track. 25Honest words never hurt anyone, but what’s the point of all this pious bluster? 26You pretend to tell me what’s wrong with my life, but treat my words of anguish as so much hot air. 27Are people mere things to you? Are friends just items of profit and loss? 28Look me in the eye! Do you think I’d lie to your face? 29Think it over – no double-talk! Think carefully – my integrity is on the line! 30Can you detect anything false in what I say? Don’t you trust me to discern good from evil? (Peterson translation)

What verdict is drawn when we place our attempts to be a friend alongside this challenge?

References to the starving in Somalia, the raped and slaughtered in the former Yugoslavia, the degraded victims of gang crimes in Los Angeles must have a place when we ask, “Who does Job represent for us?” However, such references alone may keep the issue at a safe distance. We can turn away with an easy conscience, satisfied by a hollow prayer or an extra dollar in the offering. No. If we are to feel the full pressure of Job’s words, we must focus on concrete relationships -- relationships present in this gathering or waiting for us when we leave. To whom are we bonded by vow, even if ‘holocaust’ strikes? How different from Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are we prepared to be?

Quakers call their congregations ‘societies of friends’. Do we constitute a gathering of friends? I am not asking if we are all devoted to each other as Job defined friendship. To suggest such would be presumptuous and would neglect the wider network of relationships we all have. I am asking if we are gathered here as individuals deeply concerned to learn how to be the sort of friend who remains loyal when face to face with the despair imposed by ‘holocaust’.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer participated in a covert effort, organized within a branch of the military’s secret services, to bring Hitler down by coup or assassination. He was arrested April 1943. After two years in the grip of the Gestapo as a political prisoner, Bonhoeffer died by hanging 9 April 1945. Just a few weeks before his arrest, Bonhoeffer had written a reflection piece entitled ‘After Ten Years’. His point of reference – Hitler’s takeover in January 1933. He closed the essay with a question I want to put alongside our thoughts about remaining loyal to a despairing friend. The question – “Are we still of any use?” To this question, Bonhoeffer wrote:

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learned the arts of equivocation and pretense; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?”

Which way are we to look -- toward the heavens or back to our places in the world? Bonhoeffer’s question breaks our gaze toward the heavens. Are we still of any use -- to our partner? to our children? to our parents? to our neighbors? to our colleagues? to a stranger whose life becomes entwined with ours?

These are piercing questions. Many ‘communities’ or ‘gatherings’ in our society set tables that have no place for a person whose despair is manifest in painfully honest words. May we be granted the humility and the courage to set tables at which despairing men or women, boys or girls, feel no expectation other than to simply and honestly be themselves.

“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward
slaughter. If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this’, does not he who weighs
the heart perceive it? Will he not repay each person according to what he
has done?” (Proverbs 24:11-12)

FRAGMENT #25 -- A MEDITATION ON MARRIAGE

A gathering that celebrates the decision of two individuals to journey through life together – the essence of marriage -- creates one of the all-too-infrequent opportunities to pause in the midst of busy routines to ponder the deeper realities of life. Over against any judgment that life is essentially tragic, futile, or mundane – two individuals consecrate both their individuality and their life together. Faded pictures, quiet reminders, humorous stories, private thoughts -- all such priceless reflections on swiftly-flown days are safely tucked away as the celebrated individuals mark the completion of their separate narratives -- with many dreams fulfilled, some unfulfilled -- and the beginning of their shared narrative.

The French have a beautiful word -- L'Abri -- that means ‘shelter’. Family and friends pitch a welcoming L'Abri, a sturdy shelter, a loving canopy over the celebrated individuals as they merge themselves in marriage.

Two individuals vow before family and friends to share the return of their work, to pick each other up, to keep each other warm. But why trust each other? Their mutual trust is anchored by their shared resolve to remain centered by respect, empathy, fairness when they are weary and worn as well as when they are exuberant and overflowing.

Three terms from antiquity give texture to the ‘love’ so essential to this way of being together -- i.e., eros or sensuality, phileo or friendship, and agape or steadfast devotion.

To love is to be sensual – to have keen eyes, alert ears, refined tastes, a gentle touch. Ideally, two individuals committed to each other in marriage have grown up with dance, merriment, song, feasts, wine . . . delight in creativity . . . appreciate the subtleties of color and composition . . . are refreshed by art and music . . . see nature’s allegories as they sit, walk, run, ride. Jewish poets produced a timeless poem of romance -- The Song of Solomon -- that speaks of being ‘faint with love’. When love between two individuals committed to each other in marriage is full and complete, their love is sensual.

To love is to aspire for exceptional friendship. Jewish storytellers produced a timeless study of what it means to be such a friend -- The Story of Job. This story’s main character is reduced by tragic suffering to being tossed aside on the ‘scrap heap’. He clings nonetheless to the idea that “a despairing person should have the devotion of a friend, even though s/he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” Job’s closest friends fall short. His spouse falls short. Unrestrained openness and freedom make unconditional friendship a rare gift. When love between two individuals committed to each other in marriage is full and complete, their love is expressed in the special friendship envisioned in the story of Job.

To love is to remain true to the steadfastness that has been promised. Jewish prophets found in marriage a profound metaphor for imagining the unwavering faithfulness of ‘God’ to Israel, even when Israel wounded her spouse by straying or being distracted from steadfast devotion. When love between two individuals committed to each other in marriage is full and complete, their disposition toward each other is authentic, not calculated; self-sacrificing, not self-serving; respectful, not biased; longsuffering, not erratic.

And so -- sensuality; friendship; steadfast devotion. What do these reflections mean for me? I am resolved to remain open to these near mystical experiences; to keep them etched in my memories. Doing so is not easy. Sustaining the vigor in a way of being together that enlarges rather than exploits, that frees rather than controls, that hopes rather than despairs is an uncommon achievement. The social spheres in which I live and work routinely promote a very different way of being together – e.g., the way of competition, self-assertion, pretense, manipulation, suspicion, secrecy. Two individuals committed to each other in marriage must instead be resolved to cherish one another in mutual esteem, to bear with each other’s infirmities, to comfort each other in sickness and accident, to encourage one another to live as an heir of grace. For me --

• When my peers live tangled in self-interests, may I demonstrate the self-transcending ideals of peace, mercy, and justice.
  
  
• When my peers hold strangers and strange ideas in contempt, may my home be hospitable to a rich diversity of persons and ideas.
  
  
• When my peers languish with no holy places, may my home ever be a sanctuary.
  
  
• When my peers aimlessly and recklessly yield to their impulses and passions, may I remain loyal to the ideas that I in calm moments have discerned to be true and ennobling.
  
  
• When my peers invest their lives in shortsighted aspirations, may I remain wedded to the intention to treat as most important each day what will still seem important on my last day.

Marriage can/should be a sacrament, indeed a conveyor of grace, for two individuals sharing life together and for their acquaintances who are searching for insight into how to live life well.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #12

“ . . . anti-Semitic of some stripe”?

Thorough-Going Nazi -10 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 Resistance/Conspiracy

DISPOSITION –10: No personal association with Jews. Ideologically driven to the point of calculated violence against Jews. Harsh verbal abuse. Ready to risk personal loss to reinforce security/control.

DISPOSITION –7: No personal association with Jews. Hostile to the point of being incited to violence against Jews. Taunting verbal abuse. Ready to risk personal loss to reinforce security/control.

DISPOSITION –4: Minimized personal association with Jews. Approved segregation and restriction on civil rights of Jews. Nervous verbal abuse. Approved actions that reinforced security/control.

DISPOSITION –1: Isolated personal association with Jews. Not seriously hostile toward Jews. Preferred segregation. Playful verbal abuse. Quiet about actions that reinforced security/control.

DISPOSITION 0: Naïve personal association with Jews.

DISPOSITION +1: Occasional personal association with Jews. Not openly opposed to segregation of and restriction on civil rights of Jews. Perhaps objected in private to abuse. Avoided personal loss/risk.

DISPOSITION +4: Sustained personal association with Jews. Supported desegregation of Jews. Opposed restricting civil rights of Jews. Cautiously outspoken in private to abuse. Easily intimidated.

DISPOSITION +7: Valued personal association with Jews. Supported integration of Jews. Responsive to institutional (collective) ‘evil’ re abuse. Willing to risk personal loss/risk.

DISPOSITION +10: Solidarity with abused Jews. Resistance/conspiracy (covert or overt) against institutional (collective) ‘evil’. Ready to risk personal loss/risk.


I understand Dietrich Bonhoeffer to have considered the ‘German Churches/Christians’ to have been spread across the ‘-7 to +1’ range of dispositions and the ‘Confessing Churches/Christians’ to have been spread across the ‘-3 to +5’ range of dispositions. He and the Bonhoeffer family were among those with the ‘10’ disposition.

Personal experience/reflections/observations re anti-Semitism:

• Among my close circle of childhood friends was the son of the Jewish family who owned the sporting good store on the town square (i.e., a schoolmate and fellow football player in my hometown of Mayfield, KY).
  
  
• I recall little or no discussion of anti-Semitism – either in antiquity or in the modern era – during my childhood. In discussions or presentations re Christianity, the ‘religious’ discourse in which I was raised disenfranchised the Jewish community (e.g., references to ‘the Old Testament’ rather than ‘Jewish/Hebrew scripture’, to Jews as ‘them’, to “they rejected/killed Christ”, . . .) and left anti-Semitic attitudes/comments unaddressed/unchallenged.
  
  
• My sensitivity and appreciation for Jewish history/experience deepened/broadened when the methodology for my study of history became increasingly careful/critical in a scholarly way during my final two undergraduate years at Murray State University and matured further during my doctoral work. My ongoing study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life/thought since 1976 has ‘kept open the Jewish question’ (adapting one of his phrases). My special friendship since 1985 with Sheldon Korones, MD (whose grandparents emigrated a century ago to New York City’s Lower East Side from Czarist Russia) remains a centering/defining/pivotal gift/experience for me.
  
  
• The ‘Pharisees’ are presented in reductionist and biased ways in the Synoptic Gospels, as are ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel of John and in the Acts of the Apostles. Note how such writings (which as canonical are considered authoritative within the ‘religious’ sphere), if considered uncritically and without attention to the wider historical context/resources, lead either to anti-Semitic attitudes and behavior or permit such to develop/occur unchecked.
  
  
• Are there any individuals/groups for whom it is justified to isolate, segregate, attack, eliminate? Answering this question ‘No’ (which I do) is one of many reasons I became estranged from the ‘religious’ upbringing of my youth. Note that to answer this question within the ‘religious’ sphere a decision has to be made re the nature and use of Jewish and Christian scripture. In other words re anti-Semitism -- if one takes a ‘flat’ view of Jewish and Christian scripture, these biases will not be seriously questioned. If one takes a more critical/modern view of Jewish and Christian scripture, such biases are more likely to be questioned.
  
  
• I align myself with efforts (1) to protect and assure every individual’s/group’s freedom of speech, but (2) to restrict, discipline, and prohibit discriminatory behavior (including verbal abuse and exploitation as well as violence) in the public/common domain. This alignment implies confidence in the outcome of open and free thought (which in turn implies cultivation of a thirst to be fully informed and a resolve to learn the art of critical thinking). This view permits and supports legislative/judicial decisions to restrain ‘fundamentalist’-rooted discourse and behavior in the public/common domain.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #11 – reflections from journal entries

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #11 – reflections from journal entries

Now for another set of ten reflections selected/adapted from journal entries written during my Vermont years (1992-95).

21. The ‘non-religious’ hermeneutic I am following has essentially/centrally to do with making sufficient sense of life experiences to conceive of and pursue a well-lived life.
    
    
22. The ‘non-religious’ methodology I am following seeks and is open to ‘truth’ from all sources. Modern/‘from below’ proposals are assessed (1) by the selection/handling of data and (2) by internal consistency. Previously held views (including proposals from antiquity) are (re)considered in light of foundational modern/‘from below’ insights before being accepted/followed as credible. A ‘religious’ methodology does the reverse.
    
    [Note: By ‘from below’, I have in mind the exercise and results of a scientific method for inquiry. The technological means for scientific observation continue to become increasingly sophisticated and penetrating. As examples from Galileo forward reveal, resistance to the resulting new data becomes more intense as one moves from the liberal end to the fundamentalist end of the theological spectrum.]
    
23. The aim of a ‘non-religious’ interpretation of Jesus’ identity centers on his credibility as a resource/guide for defining a well-lived life.
    
    
24. The ‘non-religious’ interpretation of salvation I am following provides support for creating and sustaining hope, especially in different life circumstances or ethically dangerous situations.
    
    
25. The ‘non-religious’ approach to the assembling of communities of faith that I am following is analogous to the huddle behind the line of scrimmage in football.
    
    
26. My experience with ‘religious’ language has moved chronologically through several phases. Prior to 1973 (when my first wife’s multiple sclerosis was diagnosed), the ‘religious’ language of the thought world into with I was born and in which I was raised overlapped my social language and was taken for granted. From 1973 forward, the ‘religious’ language I inherited at birth was expanded through undergraduate and graduate education, along with an introduction to ‘marketplace’ language. During the first decade of my first wife’s illness (1973-84), I was moving away from ‘religious’ language and toward ‘religionless’ language (1) as I learned through experience the language of ‘displacement’ and ‘wilderness’ associated with chronic illness and (2) as the ‘religious’ language I inherited and had taken for granted in my youth began to buckle under both rational and existential pressure. By my first wife’s death (d. 1987), my first language had become ‘wilderness’ (‘displaced’) language; my second language, ‘marketplace’ (esp. medical sphere) language; my third language, ‘religious’ language. It seemed to me that, for most, their first language was either ‘religious’ language or ‘marketplace’ language.
    
    [Note: One’s ‘first language’ is primary, instinctive, the language in which one dreams. I had discovered that ‘religious’ language was of little benefit in interpreting experiences in the ‘wilderness’ or in the ‘marketplace’. My ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics developed out of the experience and language of the ‘wilderness’ and the ‘marketplace’.]
    
    
27. The ‘non-religious’ eschatology I am following is expressed well by the phrase ‘honorable defeat’ (the title of a book by Anton Gill about the German conspirators during the Nazi period).
    
    [Note: A ‘religious’ eschatology can only consider/envision victory at some level – individual, corporate, historical, cosmological. A ‘non-religious’ eschatology can face likely defeat at every level. The Abwehr resistance circle’s efforts (of which Bonhoeffer was central) to persuade the Allies not to insist on the unconditional surrender imposed on the Germans after the 1914-18 war failed. Then their 20 July 1944 attempt the kill Hitler and take control of the government/military failed.]
    
    
28. The ‘non-religious’ approach to ‘community’ I am following is three-tiered. (1) My most radical (i.e., to the root) and first-order experience of ‘community’ comes in/through alignment with the tragic sufferer, the stranger, the economically/socially vulnerable, the enemy, the displaced, the dismembered. (2) My second-order experience of ‘community’ comes in/through alignment with those who, in/during the first-order experience, I discover to share this way of being. (3) My third-order experience of ‘community’ comes with those with whom I discover similar experiences/sources for being this sort of person and for sustaining this way of being.21
    
    [Note: A ‘religious’ approach to ‘community’ concentrates on and, in many cases, is restricted to the ‘religious community’. In the extreme, a ‘religious’ approach to ‘community’ turns inward, with the consequence of dissociating as much as possible from the ‘wilderness’ and the ‘marketplace’. The fellowship/discourse characteristic of the third-order ‘non-religious’ experience of ‘community’ is revised by, is consistent with, and flows from the fellowship/discourse characteristic of the second-order ‘non-religious’ experience of ‘community’. The temptation (i.e., the path of least resistance and greatest familiarity) is to lapse into the cliquishness/exclusivity characteristic of societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere). The fellowship/discourse that results from yielding to this temptation will/does not support, center on, or treat as ultimate the first-order ‘non-religious’ experience of ‘community’. Examples of my ‘non-religious’ experiences of ‘community’ -- (1) the first-order experience of ‘community’ my family and I had with the profoundly abused children removed from their homes and sheltered by the state at the K-Bar-B Ranch (our ‘church’ during the New Orleans years), (2) the second-order experience of ‘community’ I found with the ‘Who Cares?” gathering of faculty members from the LSU Ob/Gyn Department and also with the Miami CARE social workers doing case management with the cocaine abusing mothers enrolled in our intervention project, (3) the third-order experience of ‘community’ I am experiencing with the Dayspring Family Health Center professional staff.]
    
    
29. I am finding that a ‘religionless’ experience of ‘community is indeed ‘arcane’ (as Bonhoeffer anticipated in his prison correspondence).
    
    [Note: I dissociate ‘arcane’ from the antiquated and pre-modern/scientific oddity/strangeness of ‘religious’ language. I associate ‘arcane’ instead with the focus, intensity, anchor, depth, . . . found in the essence of the first-order ‘non-religious’ experience of ‘community’.
    
    
30. Bonhoeffer’s life (especially the 1939-45 period) and his prison correspondence have been pivotal for me since I first read Letters and Papers in the mid-1970s while traveling in Europe. One reason is the number of associations I have made between his decisions/experiences and mine. The inequalities, with me in the diminished position, are obvious. However, from my first exposure to him -- both his life and thought -- the thirst for a ‘visit’ has been great. Thus, I have not read him passively, but actively and imaginatively. Here are some of the connections with him I have dared to note (for myself):

• a deeply respectful disposition toward culture, with corresponding appreciation and confidence in human beings
  
• a love for ‘the game’, particularly athletics
  
• the joy of rummaging through the art, philosophy, theology, music, and ‘accidents’ of history
  
• a tightly-woven immediate family that, though enriched by variety, rallies without any reservations around any one member
  
• a willingness to think and follow new ideas, sorted out by the determination to stand ‘with the world face to face’ (Paul Gerhardt as referenced in Letters and Papers, p. 143)
  
• a ‘prison’ experience (forced on me by the confinement inseparable from remaining true to my marriage vow as my first wife deteriorated under the assault of multiple sclerosis)
  
• a disposition toward theology faculty positions that makes such a position a means to an end rather than an end in itself (which for me had to do with the vision – completely gone after 1987 -- that a new variation of my denomination of birth could develop a format that would provide a truly free gathering for searchers/believers whose primary place in the world is outside the ‘religious’ sphere)
  
• the failed attempt to find ‘community’, integrity, and courage within institutionalized ‘religion’
  
• the influence of Adolph von Harnack
  
• choosing more immediate responsibilities over expanding experiences (Dietrich’s not fulfilling the desire to travel to India to spend time with Gandhi, mine not entering the doctoral program at Oxford University under Maurice Wiles after finishing my PhD at Southern Seminary)
  
• “writing without hope of publication” (cf., Bethge, Bonhoeffer: An Illustrated Biography, p. 65)
  
• respect for individuals (e.g., Clay Darnell, Jerry Trimble, Shelly Korones, Howard Brody, et al for me) who, as Dr. Rieux-type individuals (cf., Camus’ The Plague), defy the assumptions of traditional Christian theology
  
• the ‘friend in the singular’ theme
  
• being drawn to Merton-type monasticism
  
• a ‘seminary’ approach to training young pastors
  
• the centrality of the Sermon on the Mount
  
• ‘wilderness’ and ‘Who Am I?” experiences
  
• the resolve to remain focused on the concrete, on the ‘outer line’
  
• readiness to act on convictions
  
• the definition of and nuances for ‘religion’
  
• seeing the deficiencies and shortcomings in Barth’s theology
  
• persistent attention to ‘the Jewish Question’
  
• close/defining friendship with Jewish individuals (Hilldebrandt and Leibholz for Dietrich, Dr. Korones and Dr. Brody for me)
  
• wrestling with the story/play Job
  
• the immediate family (rather than ‘church’) as the grounding experience of ‘community’
  
• writing a wedding meditation for close friends (the Bethges for him; from the Korones wedding to our daughter Erin’s wedding)
  
• doctoral training in historical and systematic theology
  
• serious consideration of Schleiermacher’s thought
  
• a study visit to Rome
  
• experiment with ‘community’ (‘House of Brethren’ for Dietrich, ‘Who cares?’ faculty group at LSU for me)
  
• point-counterpoint with Bultmann’s thought
  
• assessing integrity by asking how one treats the person/s least like one’s self
  
• study and influence of the Social Gospel, resulting in a commitment to social justice
  
• influence of ‘Negro Spirituals’
  
• becoming a faculty member at a young age (Bonhoeffer at 25, I at 28), with a circle of dedicated students
  
• a writing style in which “every word has been well-considered and every sentence talks”
  
• being “incomprehensibly in radical opposition to all my friends” (24 October 1933 letter to Barth)
  
• teaching difficult youth (Berlin confirmation classes for Bonhoeffer, K-Bar-B kids for me)
  
• crossing the threshold from ‘religious’ to ‘non-religious’ at age 39
  
• maximizing the use of time
  
• engaging seminal thinkers in their strengths (cf., I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 65)
  
• deeply affected by Schweitzer (cf., Kuhns, In Pursuit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 40)
  
  
  

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #42

Re ‘Jesus’ -- a method is needed that (1) distinguishes ‘Jesus’ from the prima facie impressions left by the four Gospels (e.g., Maccoby’s The Myth-Maker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity), (2) delineates the place of ‘religion’ for ‘Jesus’ (e.g., birth place/family, synagogue upbringing, religious ceremonies, custom of attending synagogue services, interest in the Temple, familiarity with scripture texts, . . .), (3) delineates ‘non-religious’ dimensions in ‘Jesus’ (e.g., immediacy of the presence of ‘God’, open-air vs. institutional settings in which to meet/teach, the Sermon on the Mount themes, his death, . . .).

There are at least three ways to read Job -- (1) focus on ‘God’, with the Accuser and Job interpreted in light of such emphasis, (2) focus on the Accuser, with ‘God’ and Job interpreted in light of such emphasis, (3) focus on Job, with ‘God’ and the Accuser interpreted in light of such emphasis.

What influence do/should choices re professional and personal paths have on experiencing pressure -- at the paradigm level -- from the harsh realities innocent suffering?

The ‘scrapheap’ Job’s self-defense and strained grip on his integrity represent the beginnings of an approach to spirituality based on his strengths. The ‘religious’ T/O paradigm is weighted toward a spirituality based on a low/weak self-understanding, with the result that either ‘God’ is relevant only to one’s weakness/es or weakness becomes the essential/full truth about one’s self. Affirmation of and appeal to human strength/s are heard within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm as pride heading toward spiritual/theological self-destruction.

Re “time and chance govern (happen to) all” (Eccl. 9:11) -- I understand the reference to time to mean timing. ‘Govern’ and ‘happen to’ translate a Hebrew verb that means to encounter, to meet, to befall. Does this word point to an earlier stage in the development of Hebrew thought when chance was considered to be present/manifest in human experience? when ‘God’ had not been figured out as per the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm? when the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm did not yet exist? Or does this word point to a later challenge to the established ‘religious’ T/O paradigm?

Does chance have a place in the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm? No. Is the “time and chance govern (happen to) all” proverb repeated/reflected elsewhere in Jewish or Christian scripture? No. From the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm perspective, Koheleth is simply wrong. At best the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm allows that ‘God’ decides the ultimate fate of an individual, but that the method/experience of that fate can be executed in a variety of ways. The ‘religious’ T/O paradigm’s adherents attribute events not explained by the paradigm to mystery.

Job begins with a series of tragic reports of death and devastation. Then after months of futility (7:3), the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s physical deterioration leaves him dirty, foul breathed, a mere shadow of his former frame. Food has no taste. The nights drag on. He can read abandonment, fear, ridicule in the eyes of friends, relatives, colleagues. There are several ways to enter the story – e.g.,

1. The question “Does Job fear God for nothing?” leads to an interpretation of tragic experiences as a test of integrity (defined as the coherence of one’s actions over a lifetime). Job is not charged with vices. Instead, he is suspected of being double-minded in his virtues. Why does the Accuser think he can win the prologue wager?
   
2. The vow “For better or worse” leads to an attempt to see the story/play from the perspective of Job’s wife. Particular attention – unfortunately absent in the story/play -- should be given to the multiple complications faced daily by the spouses of profound sufferers.
   
3. Realizing that good intentions can fail leads to a description/interpretation of the inability of Job’s spiritual community, including his closest friends, to remain loyal to him.
   
4. The claim “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away” leads into an examination of the border that separates pre-scientific and scientific (or modern) understandings of life experiences, with particular attention given to the expanding technological/medicinal ways we now give and take away life.

The only time or place where conversations ever ring unambiguously true to me is a time or place that is separate from the language, the liturgy, and the theology taken for granted by every ‘religious’ community with which I am familiar.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #41

The exchanges between the ‘scrapheap’ Job and his three close friends are in poetic form. The prophetic form and the lament form in antiquity had poetic characteristics. MacLeish’s JB is a script for theatre. Did Israel have theatre? Or was theatre not introduced until the rise of the Greeks?

Parallels may be seen between the stories of Ruth and Job (esp., the endings), with Boaz as something of a model ‘wise man’. Would Boaz add anything new to Job if he were written into the story/play as a fourth close friend? Perhaps he could be presented as doing something for the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s comfort/recovery the other three close friends do not achieve, highlighting the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm’s dilemma – i.e., to comfort the ‘scrapheap’ Job is to fight against ‘God’. Would Boaz, therefore, have difficulty or be awkward with the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm’s theological demands? Is there indication of such awkwardness for Boaz in the story of Ruth? Another option for writing in a fourth close friend would be to add Koholeth. And then there is the task of writing into the story/play a ‘non-religious’ interpretation of ‘Jesus’ as a character.

Representations of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm in American Christianity that move across the theological spectrum from liberal to evangelical/fundamentalist become increasingly individualistic in the interpretation of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm’s promises of providential protection/security. Is the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm in its Jewish origins and through the life of ‘Jesus’ rooted in a corporate more than an individualistic meaning for providence?

Is there a concept of freedom in Job? in Ecclesiastes? The ‘religious’ T/O paradigm interpretations of freedom have developed in light of assumptions re divine sovereignty (e.g., Luther’s ‘two kingdom’ model or the medieval view of freedom as recovering what one was intended by the design of creation to be). Is the idea of freedom as autonomy in Job? in Ecclesiastes? in other Jewish or Christian scripture texts? in the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm? in Jewish theology? in Christian theology? Autonomy as the essence of freedom is a distinctive characteristic of a ‘non-religious’ approach to theology, spirituality, ethics (e.g., a more adult nuance rather than an infant nuance re being a ‘child of God’, responsibility for one’s self and others, liberty to make choices, . . .). From within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, any suggestion or affirmation of autonomy is considered pride and is condemned (a charge the three close friends attempt to force on the ‘scrapheap’ Job).

Is there a variation on the ‘religious’ paradigm in which innocent suffering is recognized as in fact (rather than only in appearance) offensive, tragic, grievously wrong? in which innocent suffering is taken seriously? I do not know of such.

The ‘religious’ T/O paradigm is dependent on and inseparable from using language about ‘God’ in a literally equivalent manner (rather than in an analogical manner that acknowledges the significance of anthropomorphic, sociomorphic, and cosmomorphic limitations/restrictions). Assigning meaning to the term ‘God’ in this way -- so evident in the literally equivalent rather than analogical use of language about ‘God’ within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm -- makes the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm vulnerable to spiritual/theological collapse for sufferers represented by the ‘scrapheap’ Job.

I see the ‘scrapheap’ Job as troubled (beyond the sheer pain of his condition) because his expectations were so deeply rooted in the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm critiqued in the story/play. The ‘scrapheap’ Job cannot say, “I’ve been dealt a bad hand” and refer to the luck, the randomness, the misfortune of a ‘chance factor’ at work in human experience. Instead, he expects to be dealt a good hand and cannot (with integrity) avoid challenging/questioning the dealer (i.e., ‘God’). (Note a limit to the use of the dealer analogy in that there is a personal factor -- the dealer -- and there is a random factor -- the shuffle of the cards -- in the reference.) Corollary observations: (1) Many individuals who experience significant loss or suffering remain safely within and loyal to the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm without nearing the troubled state of the ‘scrapheap’ Job. (2) Many others who experience significant loss or suffering do so safely outside of and not invested in the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm without nearing the troubled state of the ‘scrapheap’ Job. The beginnings of a ‘non-religious spirituality’ can be found among these individuals -- e.g., humility, gratefulness, empathy, true friendship, . . . (3) It is not clear to me that the ‘scrapheap’ Job crosses the threshold beyond which his pain/suffering can/will open his eyes to and become symbolic of the breadth/depth of innocent suffering. (4) The ‘religious’ T/O paradigm is based on a ‘proportionality’ expectation.

The Apostle Paul seems deeply ‘religious’ in the T/O paradigm sense in that (1) he builds off the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm re ‘God’, human experience, and history, (2) his methodology is not in any way empirical/historical (in other words, he does not consider seriously the caravan news as does the ‘scrapheap’ Job or what happens ‘under the sun’ as does Koheleth), (3) he does not recognize/affirm innocent suffering as an in fact reality, (4) he argues for proportionality re the righteous being blessed and the unrighteous being cursed, (5) he separates wisdom from careful/indiscriminate consideration of human experience, (6) he expects the end of time to come soon, (7) he juxtaposes faith and doubt, (8) he . . . .

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #40

Within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, the epilogue is understood to say, “I knew God would make everything work out in the end.” Instead, I hear the epilogue to say, “It all works out in the end. It’s like nothing bad ever happened to Job! Yeah, right.” I think a sarcastic interpretation should be carried into the epilogue from the end of the whirlwind encounter.

Peterson (42:2) has the ‘scrapheap’ Job say, “I’m convinced” (RSV “I know”). These two options have some obvious common ground. However, the two translations also illustrate two interpretations re whether Job retains or surrenders his ‘scrapheap’ perspective. “I’m convinced” leaves the impression the whirlwind charges by ‘God’ have shaken Job from his ‘scrapheap’ views. “I know” leaves open the double entendre – i.e., saying under duress “OK . . . Uncle . . . You win . . .” -- in order to survive while holding even more firmly to his ‘scrapheap’ views. I opt for the latter interpretation.

I find Peterson’s translation (42:3a) – “You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water, ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’” -- much more approachable than the RSV’s translation (i.e., “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?”). The RSV is word-for-word, but Peterson catches a very plausible nuance the RSV misses.

Peterson (42:3b) has “babbled” and “made small talk” (RSV “uttered”). His wording accentuates (to the point of comedy and/or sarcasm?) a self-depreciating posture for the ‘scrapheap’ Job. I would direct the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s comments as double entendre throughout his response.

Peterson (42:5a) has the ‘scrapheap’ Job say, “I admit I once lived by rumors of you” (RSV “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear”). What does the ‘scrapheap’ Job have in mind re his pre-whirlwind method for thinking about ‘God’? Peterson (42:6) returns to this question with -- “I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor”.

Peterson (42:6) seems a bit weak, apparently wanting to reinforce the point mentioned above. His wording corresponds with the RSV only with “I’m sorry -- forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise.” The RSV has “I despise myself”. Peterson then seems to fall away from a sarcastic tone for the ‘scrapheap’ Job. However, the RSV can still be read with a sarcastic tone. ‘Despise’ has been used before in the story/play:

5:17 – “Do not despise the discipline of the Almighty” (Eliphaz)
7:16 – “I loathe (despise) my life” (Job)
8:20 – “God will not reject (despise) a blameless person” (Bildad)
9:21 – “I loathe (despise) my life” (Job)
19:18 – “ . . . even young children despise me” (Job)
30:1 – “ . . . whose fathers I would have disdained (despised)” (Job)
31:13 – “If I have rejected (despised) the cause of my male or female slaves” (Job)
34:33 – “Will he then pay back to suit you, because you reject (despise) it?” (Elihu)
36:5 – “Surely God is mighty and does not despise any” (Elihu)

Does the RSV reference to “dust and ashes” mean “in my dust and ashes, I repent” or is the picture one in which the ‘scrapheap’ Job does something new/additional? Unless the sarcastic tone/meaning is maintained, the radical (i.e., to the root of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm) position pressed by Job from the ‘scrapheap’ cannot be sustained. To leave the whirlwind situation here (42:6) would lead in one of two unacceptable directions – either ‘God’ throws the ‘scrapheap’ Job out of his presence or the ‘scrapheap’ Job withdraws his case.

I think it is necessary to include 42:7-9 with the sections of the story/play between the prologue and the epilogue. There is no reference in the prologue to the three close friends speaking. Therefore, the reference to ‘God’ in 42:7-9 is still to the whirlwind image of ‘God’.

If the story is to be staged as theater, where are the three close friends during the whirlwind exchanges between ‘God’ and the ‘scrapheap’ Job? They are present as Elihu speaks and there seems to be no dramatic break between the Elihu section and the whirlwind section. Perhaps they are off to the side, oblivious to what is happening. Perhaps they are overwhelmed by the theophany, not understanding or not wanting to understand.

Why is ‘God’ fed up with the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s three close friends? How does what they have said differ so dramatically from what ‘God’ has just said in the whirlwind? The only point that stands out to me is that the three close friends continued to defend the moral integrity and accountability of ‘God’ whereas ‘God’ as presented in the whirlwind section seems to take offense at the notion of accountability except to someone his equal (i.e., the ‘might makes right’ position). In other words, censoring the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s three close friends implies rejection of the (D)euteronomic covenant at the heart of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm.

The RSV has “wrath” (42:7). The word occurs five other times – (19:11) “He has kindled his wrath against me” (Job), (20:23) “God will send his fierce anger upon them” (Zophar), (32:2) “Then Elihu became angry” (narrator), (32:3) “he was angry also at Job’s three friends’ (narrator about Elihu), (32:5) “Elihu became angry” (narrator). How does this wrath compare/contrast with the anger assigned ‘God’ in the prologue?

Peterson has “either with me or about me” where the RSV has “of me” in translating the charge of dishonesty or truthlessness ‘God’ brings against the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s three close friends. It is as if the heated exchanges between the ‘scrapheap’ Job and his three close friends occur in the presence of ‘God’ who sits as a silent judge throughout the exchanges and now declares the ‘scrapheap’ Job to be the one who has prevailed. One way to cast this scene would be to have ‘God’ suddenly/dramatically illumined in a previously dark space on stage.

Peterson uses ‘friend’ throughout 42:7-8 where the RSV uses ‘friend’ only once (in reference to Eliphaz’s two companions). Is there one word here that can mean ‘friend’ or ‘servant’? How do the Hebrew words compare/contrast with other references in the story/play to ‘friend’ or ‘servant’? The RSV presents the literal Hebrew wording. ‘Friend’ occurs only once in reference to Bildad and Zophar whereas Job is always referred to as ‘servant’ (specifically ‘my servant’). ‘Servant’ might be a higher designation than ‘friend’ in relation to ‘God’. ‘Servant’ can indicate a close relationship.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job’s three close friends are charged with “talking nonsense” (Peterson) (RSV “according to your folly”). The thrust of the whirlwind thundering of ‘God’ seems to be to force the ‘scrapheap’ Job to admit folly or nonsense. Why would ‘God’ see a difference between the three close friends and the ‘scrapheap’ Job here? Is ‘God’ sanctioning the courage to test the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm? to face offensive life experiences ‘eye to eye’? Does doing so undermine all wisdom within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm?

The short version of the story/play -- i.e., prologue plus the epilogue in the last paragraph of the text (42:10-17) -- stands on its own as a separate composition. The intense exchanges between the ‘scrapheap’ Job and his three close friends (chs. 3-32) also stand alone as a separate composition that openly and antithetically challenges the short version of the story/play. The whirlwind section -- perhaps including the Elihu speeches, but definitely including the 42:7-9 paragraph -- stands on its own as a separate composition. If the whirlwind ‘God’ is the narrator’s proposal re ‘God’, it seems to me:

• The narrator recognizes the simplistic form of the story/play preferred within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm is severely damaged/discredited by the heated exchanges between the ‘scrapheap’ Job and his three close friends;
  
• The narrator’s whirlwind ‘God’ remains within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm (being anchored by appeal to the sheer sovereignty of ‘God’), but now minus the (D)euteronomic reduction of human experience to a ‘righteous are blessed and unrighteous are cursed’ equation;
  
• The narrator’s whirlwind alternative to the simplistic theology common to the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm is somewhat analogous to the shift from the Homeric stories of the gods to Greek philosophy (from Socrates through Zeno);
  
• The narrator’s whirlwind ‘God’ undercuts the radical (i.e., to the root) ‘scrapheap’ insights of Job;
  
• If the narrator is responsible for the official text having the last paragraph (either by writing it or allowing it), then the narrator makes room for the retention of the simplistic ‘religious’ T/O paradigm/theology as well as for consideration of the radical intention/result of the ‘scrapheap’ perspective on spirituality/ethics/theology (affirmed in 42:7-9) inherent in the extended section with the heated exchanges between the ‘scrapheap’ Job and his three close friends.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #39

Peterson has the whirlwind ‘God’ chide the ‘scrapheap’ Job -- “Now what do you have to say for yourself? Are you going to haul me, the Mighty One, into court and press charges?” (40:1-2). The RSV seems hard to read here. “A faultfinder” seems vague. “Contend” carries the image of a formal charge in court. The idea is instead more that of a frail beggar daring to challenge the integrity of the senior teacher of wisdom at the city gates. And how should “let him answer it” be heard (40:2)? Is the ‘scrapheap’ Job being forced/embarrassed to shut up until he can match the whirlwind ‘God’ item for item in a knowledge test? Or is the ‘scrapheap’ Job being forced/embarrassed to shut up by the whirlwind ‘God’ pulling rank on him?

At best, the whirlwind ‘God’ can look over at the epilogue Job (42:10ff) after the crowded city gates have emptied and tosses him some coins. ‘God’ looks like ‘the Godfather’. The logic seems lost. ‘God’ challenges the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s credentials. ‘God’ disregards the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s credibility as a survivor.

And then the surprise (42:7-9) -- ‘God’ endorses what Job has said from the ‘scrapheap’! With this unanticipated endorsement, the story/play calls for a verdict from each reader/hearer re the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm that is so thoroughly discredited by Job from the ‘scrapheap’.

Peterson has the ‘scrapheap’ Job say, “I should never have opened my mouth” (40:3-5). Here is an echo of the prologue references to Job’s not charging ‘God’ with wrongdoing, to his not blaming ‘God’, to his not sinning “with his lips”. Does Job’s response mean he no longer thinks what he dared to say from the ‘scrapheap’? Or does it mean the ‘scrapheap’ Job realizes the audience with ‘God’ for which he has hoped is useless?

Peterson makes the taunting by the whirlwind ‘God’ clear -- “Do you presume to tell me what I’m doing wrong? Are you calling me a sinner so you can be a saint?” (40:8). The whirlwind ‘God’ disavows any accountability to the likes of the ‘scrapheap’ Job. The whirlwind ‘God’ persists in snubbing the ‘scrapheap’ Job -- “Go ahead, show your stuff. Let’s see what you’re made of, what you can do” (40:10). The whirlwind ‘God’ shifts to an attack on the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s motive. The ‘scrapheap’ Job could easily deflect this challenge back to ‘God’ by countering – “Must I destroy my integrity by admitting guilt so that you can be justified?”

Is there an implicit judgment against the ‘scrapheap’ Job in the reference to “the proud” (40:11-13)? I have read repeatedly the Behemoth and Leviathan sections without experiencing an “Aha, so that’s the point” other than to conclude that the message from the whirlwind ‘God’ is ‘might makes right’. Peterson has ‘God’ contend,

“If you can’t hold your own against his glowering visage, how, then, do you expect to stand up to me? Who could confront me and get by with it? I’m in charge of all this -- I run this universe!”

It seems to me the core premise of the whirlwind section is that the power/transcendence assigned to ‘God’ removes ‘God’ from accountability, leaving as ‘take it or leave it’ the claim there is some comprehensive plan/purpose that encompasses the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s plight. I do not accept this understanding of ‘God’ for at least three reasons. First, in every aspect of my life, I reject a hierarchical, ‘who is the strongest’, rank-pulling approach to relationships. Second, the core premise stands or falls with a pre-scientific cosmology. Third, I do not reduce life circumstances to a single factor -- i.e., divine sovereignty.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #38

Peterson has “And now, finally, God answered Job from the eye of a violent storm” (38:1). The RSV, following the Hebrew text more closely, does not have the word “finally”. “Finally” underscores the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s impatience and frustration. The RSV has “Lord” instead of “God”. The terms “God” and “the Almighty” are more common in Job than is the term “Lord”. Are these terms used differently in the prologue/epilogue than in the extended middle sections of the story/play? The term for “violent storm” (RSV “whirlwind”) is not the term used in the prologue. In light of the destructive wind described in the prologue, the ‘scrapheap’ Job likely associates this violent wind with a view of ‘God’ as being brutally destructive.

Interpreting the story/play in a sarcastic manner continues to be plausible through the whirlwind section. In staging this scene, is only the ‘scrapheap’ Job being addressed? or his three close friends also? and Elihu? Are the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s wife, family, and wider circle of acquaintances near?

Is the absence of specific references to the Accuser in the whirlwind section intentional? significant? By not reintroducing the Accuser, the story/play seems to put the onus squarely on ‘God’ both for the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s plight as well for the collateral killing/destruction that resulted from the prologue tragedies that befell Job. (Note the Accuser is also not mentioned in the epilogue.) Not reintroducing the Accuser accentuates the flawed core premise of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm – i.e., that ‘God’ ultimately bears responsibility for all that happens.

Peterson has ‘God’ ask, “Why do you confuse the issue?” (38:2) where the RSV has ‘God’ ask, “Who is this that darkens counsel?” Who is ‘God’ calling confused? For whom does ‘God’ think counsel has been darkened? Is it possible ‘God’ does not recognize the ‘scrapheap’ Job? And what is the issue? The question sounds similar to a judge reacting to an attorney’s attempt to introduce more ideas and/or new information just when a court case is about to be decided.

Re “Pull yourself together, Job! Up on your feet! Stand tall!” (38:3 in Peterson) -- Can the ‘scrapheap’ Job in his deteriorated physical/emotional state do so? The demand and the tone strike me as very insensitive and could be heard to mean ‘God’ does not consider the ‘scrapheap’ Job to be as bad off as he looks, sounds, thinks.

The comments on the natural order (38:4-11) are very interesting. Peterson brings out the newborn analogy with “the ocean gushed forth like a baby from the womb” (38:8), “I made a playpen for it, a strong playpen so it couldn’t run loose” ((38:10), and “Your wild tantrums (RSV, “proud waves”) are confined to this place”. How do these descriptions compare/contrast with the Genesis stories about the natural order? with the observations about the natural order in Ecclesiastes? Is the narrator mixing literal language (e.g., Peterson’s references to “its size”, “the blueprints and measurements”, “foundation”, and “cornerstone”) and metaphorical language (e.g., Peterson’s references to “morning stars sang”, “angels shouted”, “I wrapped the ocean in soft clouds and tucked it in safely at night”) re the natural order? Would the initial readers/hearers have made such a distinction? or taken all these references literally?

This part of the story/play seems to encourage a developmental view of the natural order. Is such a view found in ancient Jewish thought? The newborn analogy is suggestive in at least three additional views -- i.e., (1) the natural order is personified with an independent will, (2) the natural order is to mature past infant/immature behavior, and (3) earthquakes, tornados, volcanoes, et al are interpreted as tantrums.

I have two primary reactions to 38:12-39:30. First, the entire section is thoroughly and essentially pre-scientific in imaging the relation of ‘God’ to the natural order. If Job is recast as a modern/scientific individual, he would be in a position to claim knowledge – even deep knowledge – about many of the questions posed by the whirlwind ‘God’. Though the RSV indicates no parallel for Peterson’s “You don’t for a minute imagine these marvels of weather just happen, do you?” (38:30), Peterson with this question seems to capture the thrust of all the illustrations in 38:12-39:30. Second, as far as I can tell, nothing is said (1) about human beings as a classification of creatures, (2) about the purpose of the natural order, (3) about the baby/adolescent disorder found in the natural order, (4) about mercy, peace, justice, or (5) about the breadth/depth of human suffering. The tone of the whirlwind ‘God’ does not suggest such questions would be entertained if pressed by the ‘scrapheap’ Job. And yet these questions are significant, at least for a ‘from below’/‘with the world face to face’ spirituality and ethics.

What do the questions the whirlwind ‘God’ puts to the ‘scrapheap’ Job have to do with the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s questions?

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #37

[The primary references to the text for the Job story/play come from Eugene Peterson’s translation -- The Message of Job. I have copied from Peterson’s translation of the whirlwind section and the epilogue in the play/story. Postings #38-#42 follow.]

38.1And now, finally, God answered Job from the eye of a violent storm. He said:

2Why do you confuse the issue? Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about? 3Pull yourself together, Job! Up on your feet! Stand tall! I have some questions for you, and I want some straight answers. 4Where were you when I created the earth? Tell me, since you know so much! 5Who decided on its size? Certainly you’ll know that! Who came up with the blueprints and measurements? 6How was its foundation poured, and who set the cornerstone, 7while the morning stars sang in chorus and all the angels shouted praise? 8And who took charge of the ocean when it gushed forth like a baby from the womb? That was me! 9I wrapped it in soft clouds, and tucked it in safely at night. 10Then I made a playpen for it, a strong playpen so it couldn’t run loose. 11And said, ‘Stay here, this is your place. Your wild tantrums are confined to this place.’

12And have you ever ordered Morning, ‘Get up!’ told Dawn, ‘Get to work!’ 13So you could seize Earth like a blanket and shake out the wicked like cockroaches? 14As the sun brings everything to light, brings out all the colors and shapes, 15the cover of darkness is snatched from the wicked – they’re caught in the very act! 16Have you ever gotten to the true bottom of things, explored the labyrinthine caves of deep ocean? 17Do you know the first thing about death? Do you have one clue regarding death’s dark mysteries? 18And do you have any idea how large this earth is? Speak up if you have even the beginning of an answer.

19Do you know where Light comes from and where Darkness lives 20so you can take them by the hand and lead them home when they get lost? 21Why, of course you know that. You’ve known them all your life, grown up in the same neighborhood with them! 22Have you ever traveled to where snow is made, seen the vault where hail is stockpiled, 23the arsenals of hail and snow that I keep in readiness for times of trouble and battle and war? 24Can you find your way to where lightning is launched, or to the place from which the wind blows? 25Who do you suppose carves canyons for the downpours of rain, and charts the route of thunderstorms 26that bring water to unvisited fields, deserts no one ever lays eyes on, 27drenching the useless wastelands so they’re carpeted with wildflowers and grass? 28And who do you think is the father of rain and dew, 29the mother of ice and frost? [You don’t for a minute imagine these marvels of weather just happen, do you? – No parallel in the RSV and no rendering for v. 30]

31Can you catch the eye of the beautiful Pleiades sisters, or distract Orion from his hunt? 32Can you get Venus to look your way, or get the Great Bear and her cubs to come out and play? 33Do you know the first thing about the sky’s constellations and how they affect things on Earth? 34Can you get the attention of the clouds, and commission a shower of rain? 35Can you take charge of the lightning bolts and have them report to you for orders? 36Who do you think gave weather-wisdom to the ibis, and storm-savvy to the rooster? 37Does anyone know enough to number all the clouds or tip over the rain barrels of heaven 38when the earth is cracked and dry, the ground baked hard as a brick? 39Can you teach the lioness to stalk her prey and satisfy the appetite of her cubs 40as they crouch in their den, waiting hungrily in their cave? 41And who sets out food for the ravens when their young cry to God, fluttering about because they have no food?

39.1Do you know the month when mountain goats give birth? Have you ever watched a doe bear her fawn? 2Do you know how many months she is pregnant? Do you know the season of her delivery, 3when she crouches down and drops her offspring? 4Her young ones flourish and are soon on their own; they leave and don’t come back. 5Who do you think set the wild donkey free, opened the corral gates and let him go? 6I gave him the whole wilderness to roam in, the rolling plains and wide-open places. 7He laughs at his city cousins, who are harnessed and harried. He’s oblivious to the cries of teamsters. 8He grazes freely through the hills, nibbling anything that’s green. 9Will the wild buffalo condescend to serve you, volunteer to spend the night in your barn? 10Can you imagine hitching your plow to a buffalo and getting him to till your fields? 11He’s hugely strong, yes, but could you trust him, would you dare turn the job over to him? 12You wouldn’t for a minute depend on him, would you, to do what you said when you said it?

13The ostrich flaps her wings futilely – all those beautiful feathers, but useless! 14She lays her eggs on the hard ground, leaves them there in the dirt, exposed to the weather, 15not caring that they might get stepped on and cracked or trampled by some wild animal. 16She’s negligent with her young, as if they weren’t even hers. She cares nothing about anything. 17She wasn’t created very smart, that’s for sure, wasn’t given her share of good sense. 18But when she runs, on, how she runs, laughing, leaving horse and rider in the dust. 19Are you the one who gave the horse his prowess and adorned him with a shimmering mane? 20Did you create him to prance proudly and strike terror with his royal snorts? 21He paws the ground fiercely, eager and spirited, then charges into the fray. 22He laughs at danger, fearless, doesn’t shy away from the sword. 23The banging and clanging of quiver and lance don’t faze him. 24He quivers with excitement, and at the trumpet blast races off at a gallop. 25At the sound of the trumpet he neighs mightily, smelling the excitement of battle from a long way off, catching the rolling thunder of the war cries.

26Was it through your know how that the hawk learned to fly, soaring effortlessly on thermal updrafts? 27Did you command the eagle’s flight, and teach her to build he nest in the heights, 28perfectly at home on the high cliff-face, invulnerable on pinnacle and crag? 29From her perch she searches for prey, spies it at a great distance. 30Her young gorge themselves on carrion; wherever there’s a road kill, you’ll see her circling.

40.1God then confronted Job directly:

2Now what do you have to say for yourself? Are you going to haul me, the Mighty One, into court and press charges?

3Job answered:

4I’m speechless, in awe – words fail me. I should never have opened my mouth! 5I’ve talked too much, way too much. I’m ready to shut up and listen.

40.6God addressed Job next from the eye of the storm, and this is what he said:

7I have some more questions for you, and I want straight answers. 8Do you presume to tell me what I’m doing wrong? Are you calling me a sinner so you can be a saint? 9Do you have an arm like my arm? Can you shout in thunder the way I can? 10Go ahead, show your stuff. Let’s see what you’re made of, what you can do. 11Unleash your outrage. Target the arrogant and lay them flat. 12Target the arrogant and bring them to their knees. Stop the wicked in their tracks – make mincemeat of them! 13Dig a mass grave and dump them in it – faceless corpses in an unmarked grave. 14I’ll gladly step aside and hand things over to you – you can surely save yourself with no help from me!

15Look at the land beast, Behemoth. I created him as well as you. Grazing on grass, docile as a cow – 16just look at the strength of his back, the powerful muscles of his belly. 17His tail sways like a cedar in the wind; his huge legs are like beech trees. 18His skeleton is made of steel, every bone in his body hard as steel. 19Most magnificent of all my creatures, but I still lead him around like a lamb! 20The grass-covered hills serve him meals, while field mice frolic in his shadow. 21He takes afternoon naps under shade trees, cools himself in the reedy swamps, 22lazily cools in the leafy shadows as the breeze moves through the willows. 23And when the river rages he doesn’t budge, stolid and unperturbed even when the Jordan goes wild. 24But you’d never want him for a pet – you’d never be able to housebreak him!

41.1Or can you pull in the sea beast, Leviathan, with a fly rod and stuff him in your creel? 2Can you lasso him with a rope, or snag him with an anchor? 3Will he beg you over and over for mercy, or flatter you with flowery speech? 4Will he apply for a job with you to run errands and serve you the rest of your life? 5Will you play with him as if he were a pet goldfish? Will you make him the mascot of the neighborhood children? 6Will you put him on display in the market and have shoppers haggle over the price? 7Could you shoot him full of arrows like a pincushion, or drive harpoons into his huge head? 8If you so much as lay a hand on him, you won’t live to tell the story. 9What hope would you have with such a creature? 10Why, one look at him would do you in! If you can’t hold your own against his glowering visage, how, then, do you expect to stand up to me? Who could confront me and get by with it? I’m in charge of all this. I run this universe! [not exactly parallel in the RSV v. 11 (from ‘how, then, . . .’) and no rendering for the reference to ‘the gods’ in v.9]

12But I’ve more to say about Leviathan, the sea beast, his enormous bulk, his beautiful shape. 13Who would even dream of piercing that tough skin or putting those jaws into bit and bridle? 14And who would dare knock at the door of his mouth filled with row upon row of fierce teeth? 15His pride is invincible: nothing can make a dent in that pride. 16Nothing can get through that proud skin – 17impervious to weapons and weather, the thickest and toughest of hides, impenetrable! 18He snorts and the world lights up with fire, he blinks and the dawn breaks. 19Comets pour out of his mouth, fireworks arc and branch. 20Smoke erupts from his nostrils like steam from a boiling pot. 21He blows and fires blaze; flames of fire stream from his mouth. 22All muscle he is – sheer and seamless muscle. To meet him is to dance with death. 23Sinewy and lithe, there’s not a soft spot in his entire body – 24as tough inside as out, rock-hard invulnerable. 25Even angels run for cover when he surfaces, cowering before his tail-thrashing turbulence. 26Javelins bounce harmlessly off his hide, harpoons ricochet wildly. 27Iron bars are so much straw to him, bronze weapons beneath notice. 28Arrows don’t even make him blink; bullets make no more impression than raindrops. 29A battle-axe is nothing but a splinter of kindling; he treats a brandished harpoon as a joke. 30His belly is armor-plated, inexorable – unstoppable as a barge. 31He boils deep ocean the way you’d boil water, he whips the sea like you’d whip an egg into batter. 32With a luminous trail stretching out behind him, you might think Ocean had grown a gray beard! 33There’s nothing on this earth quite like him, not an ounce of fear in that creature! 34He surveys all the high and mighty – king of the ocean, king of the deep!

42.1Job answered God:

2I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans. 3You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water, ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’ I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head. 4You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking. Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’ 5I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand – from my own eyes and ears! 6I’m sorry – forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.

7 After God had finished addressing Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Temanite and said, “I’ve had it with you and your two friends. I’m fed up! You haven’t been honest either with me or about me – not the way my friend Job has. . . .