The other day I read Job 10. It had a throwback to my last post: "Your hands shaped me and made me... Remember that you molded me like clay" (verses 8-9). And other parts of this chapter tied into my Taize experience in another way.
The entire book of Job has a fair amount of "why am I alive" passages, but these are from chapter 10: "Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye ever saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!" (18-19)
At the risk of sounding extremely melodramatic, in my life I have asked/said similar things to God. This February through conversations about the concept of having children, I've come to realize that probably at least 51% of me thinks not existing must be better than existing (which I am aware is unprovable and perhaps senseless). I bet this is related to the fact that as I age and (hopefully) mature spiritually, I am not less sad than I was when I was younger/farther from God. Often the opposite seems true.
I discovered what I took as a response to this at Taize, when one of the girls in my house --I don't know which one-- translated and wrote out lyrics to a song. Even though we were all in silence all week, the girls in the house communicated daily, often through eye contact. Though only two of us (out of about ten) were native English speakers, English was used whenever language was necessary. So the words on the notes we left for each other on the big table were sometimes translated from other languages, in this case, German. (Meaning I am not sure of ever tracking down the originals of what I'm about to share).
The song's title was something like "Don't forget this." It was pretty cheesy. The kind of thing that makes you smile dopily and want to hide your face so people don't see your dopey smile. I'll spare you that (mostly because I can't remember specifics). The gist, the line that stuck with me, was something like, "Never forget that living and breathing were not your idea." That could be taken in a depressing way, but it made me feel free. I don't have to find a reason for my existence. If I don't seem to be getting consistently happier during this season of life, maybe happiness isn't the main goal. I'm responsible for my actions and reactions, but I am not responsible to figure everything out, or to take credit (or blame) for my personality or family situation or anything that happens to me.
A related poem, a prayer, showed up on the table a few days later. I copied down the three lines that I loved best:
I am because of you
in front of you
and for you.
So, sure, it wasn't my idea, but it was someone else's, and I live out the life I received by gift in his full view and I'm responsible to him for how I choose to do this. I should perhaps not expect that God will answer me why I was born, but I can know that it was on purpose.
These words also gave me insight into forgiveness. Lately I've been struggling more than usual with unforgiveness. It can be hard to forgive because if I do, the person may not understand how much they hurt me. It can even be easier to forgive deeper cuts, because the offending person must understand how awful it was for me. But if someone does something that seriously bothers me but ultimately doesn't ruin my life, then I am tempted to use unforgiveness as a way to show my frustration, which the person could otherwise miss altogether. Honestly, though, they still miss it almost altogether. I am not quite terrible enough to chase people down and make sure they understand I am angry.
I understand the faulty logic of unforgiveness. I know that withholding forgiveness mostly just hurts the person who is already hurt, or keeps their wound fresh indefinitely. But the simplest reason is that Jesus asks me to forgive everything, big or small. To forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven. And he asks this for my own benefit: the Bible implies that by extending grace and forgiving debts we open our hearts to more fully receive grace and have our own debts forgiven.
From my human viewpoint, there are times forgiveness seems like a bad idea. God is so gracious to the undeserving, I tend to doubt that he would truly exact justice from those who have hurt me, particularly as they are usually believers. God is, I often remind myself, as much on their side as he is on mine. But Jesus doesn't set conditions on forgiveness. If I ran the show, I might do it differently. But if I accept that this whole living thing wasn't my idea, I can conceptualize that maybe I should just play by the rules of the person whose idea it was.
If forgiveness looks stupid, and life looks sad, I don't have to take credit for setting up and maintaining the set of systems under which that is possible. My sphere of influence is much smaller than that, and my responsibilities are exactly the right size for me, no larger and no smaller. None of this was my idea (hallelujah).
