not a single luxury
like Robinson Crusoe
it's primitive as can be
I know, I know. Who watches Gilligan's Island anymore?
Well, I do sometimes.
The gift of my father's television taste, now fortunately freed from the tyranny of commercials by boxed seasons.
I also sometimes watch Hogan's Heroes and I Dream of Jeannie, but that's beside the point.
Gilligan's Island was a comedic sitcom about a tour boat crew and its passengers who got stranded on a tropical island and had to (a) survive with whatever they'd brought along and the natural resources of the island, and (b) forge a small, functioning community out of an odd assortment of people. Admittedly, Gilligan's Island is not a perfect simile to my life at the moment: I certainly have no professor available who can figure out how to make a bomb out of a couple of coconuts to diffuse an imminently erupting volcano, and obviously if I am writing this post I am not lacking electricity or technological options to connect to the outside world. I did leave my car at home, though. And, of more relevance, I am trying to find harmony in the midst of living with an odd conglomeration of personalities, isolated from my normal community, with minimal access to my usual "drugs".
Normally when I'm stressed, I either self-medicate with chocolate (which a good health teacher from Jr. High taught me is filled with chemicals that initiate calm emotional responses) or I do my best to escape by distracting myself with fictional stories that have happy endings. Sometimes I will also listen to loud music in my car that I can sing along with to soothe my soul. However, a couple weeks ago our church Young Adult group challenged all its members to try a fast. Too much of a coward to do a full food fast for a day or two, I opted for a much longer but much less stringent fast from chocolate and fictional book reading. Since Dan opted to fast from coffee, I decided I might as well cut that out, too. We arbitrarily chose a traditional time length for our fast, and away we went.
It just hasn't been as easy as I thought. Oh, I've resisted temptation to the listed items alright. Rather, the challenge has been to allow God to fill those empty spaces, rather than just filling them with other things (ex. lemon squares in lieu of chocolate, and movies in lieu of books). Particularly, now that I've been travelling for nearly two weeks and my alternative drugs aren't easily accessible either (Dan, my little lemon square of sunshine, is still at home), I'm finally starting to feel the strain of the fast I chose. I am really struggling to put into practice the idea of "resting in God," and in God alone. Practically speaking, what does that look like?
I have some guesses. Rest is what you get when you're not anxious about something, regardless of whether or not your body is in motion. The banes of anxiety and helplessness seem to be competence, power, and trust. You don't need to worry about x if you believe that someone has the power, ability, and desire to handle x with care. My former room-mate, Jasmine, seemed to have a pretty good grasp of the concept of resting in God. God always seemed so obvious to her, and she followed Him like a child, curious and content. She'd chat with him about life, and he'd tell her to do things like, "Go for coffee at the Starbucks on 14th now," and she would obey and then find an old friend she hadn't seen in years. (Her summary of said 'coincidence' was: "Yeeees! I'm getting so good at this game, God!"). Graham Cooke also described his relationship with God as one of trust, and a game of giving.
Bitterness and hopelessness are not synonymous with rest. These emotional/psychological states appear to carry an underlying belief that others will not take care of x (due to incompetence, unwillingness, or impotence), so I must do x myself, and it's too hard. I've been reading through Job again. I love Job like I love reading treatises on mathematical formulas, or like I like eating broken glass, or listening to screaming babies, or eating my birthday dinner at McDonald's, or having my fingernails pulled out with pliers, or riding a bicycle in a snowstorm, or building a summer home in the middle of a Florida swamp, or going down-hill skiing in Saskatchewan, or keeping a pile of live snakes and tarantulas on the floor in lieu of carpet, or eating household pets for supper, or putting moldy potatoes in my fruit smoothie for breakfast, or rolling naked in piles of festering garbage, or watching reality tv shows on tv, or stubbing my toe on the heat register, or accidentally stabbing myself in the finger with my syringe, or presenting sex ed to a class of grade 7 students, or... I mean, honestly, has anyone ever tried to count how many similes, proverbs, and metaphors are used by each character in that story to make a point that could have been stated in under 10 seconds? Of course not- they would shoot themselves first. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right; I think Job is a counterfoil to Jasmine, or he would be if they were in the same story. Job's sin was pride and self-righteousness. He was so sure of his own perfection that he was willing to accuse God of being unjust when the blessings of his life were removed. Everyone gets so angry on his account: how could God allow such a righteous man to suffer so much and then respond to his anguish with a "Shut up and stop questioning me- I'm God, you fool!"? But how do we know Job was actually righteous, except from his own account? (ex. "Everything I did was honest. Righteousness covered me like a robe, and I wore justice like a turban" Job 29:14). How accurate was Job's account? How do you know when someone is righteous? God never argued that Job hadn't done good things with his wealth and influence while he held them. Rather, it seems that God saw something ugly coming that Job, and all Job's friends, family, and acquaintances had not seen; a temptation hidden in Job's heart Job had never recognized because Job had never been in the sort of uncomfortable place where such a thing could be revealed. He had too much chocolate and fictional reading and lemon squares and movies to watch to see that tiny little crack in his soul Satan was panting at, ready to rip in and tear it wide open for disease and death. So after all Job's angry ranting, Elihu, the young one, speaks on God's behalf: "But by means of their suffering, [God] rescues those who suffer. For he gets their attention through adversity. God is leading you away from danger, Job, to a place free from distress. He is setting your table with the best food. But you are obsessed with whether the godless will be judged. Don't worry, judgement and justice will be upheld. But watch out or you may be seduced by wealth. Don't let yourself be bribed into sin. Could all your wealth or all your mighty efforts keep you from distress? Do not long for the cover of night, for that is when people will be destroyed. Be on guard! Turn back from evil, for God has sent this suffering to keep you from a life of evil" (Job 36:15-21).
A very little bit of discomfort is already showing me that I lean a lot more on my "easy-going" and "tempered" nature to deal with conflict around me than I do on God, and when my little stress relievers of chocolate and happy distraction and people who are always nice back to me aren't available, I'm not quite as easy-going and tempered as I like to believe. I have some of the appearance of a Jasmine, but underneath is mostly the pride-cracked heart of Job with a secret doubt that God will not take care of everything the way that it should be. So come Holy Spirit, and transform me. You must increase, and I must decrease (wince). Or, since I'm looking at Job, in Job's words: "I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes, I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance" (Job 42:5-6).
