This will be going up on Beliefnet tonight--an example of a hurry-up piece,
since I had just two hours to write it from the editor's phone call till I
had to walk out the door to an appt. At first it seemed impossible to
compress such big and interrelated theological questions into 800 words,
especially because I am incapable of outlining or organizing a piece ahead of
time, but somehow it clarified and defined itself as I typed along. Another
miracle? Grace, at least.
You might remember that Beliefnet declared bankruptcy in April, but they
didn't fold; they kept poking along with a skeleton crew, and now seem to be
expanding and able to actually start commissioning pieces again. Looks like
they really might make it.
Our trip to England was WONDERFUL. It was such an honor to be invited to
speak at the CSLewis conference in Oxford. They put us up in the marvelous
old Randolph hotel, where Lewis first met Joy Davidman. Meanwhile, back home,
our grandbaby Adam was born on Monday, a week ago today. Much rejoicing. Our
total grandbaby count is now up to 4, though the oldest is just 26 months.
We're "crawling" with babies, and loving it.
***
"God Gave Us a Miracle" reads the sign outside a diner in Somerset, Penna.
But did He? Did God personally deliver the nine miners trapped 250 feet below
ground? Would he have done it even if we hadn't prayed?
"I don't think we got his attention," a friend tells me. "I don't think he
said, 'I'm busy over here creating a solar system, but I'll take a minute and
help you out.'"
This view of God--that he's a big powerful guy who sometimes pays attention
to us--sprouts naturally from what earthly, powerful guys are like. President
Bush has no idea who I am, but I could probably find the office at the White
House that would generate a card, stamped with the president's signature, for
my relative's 100th birthday. Likewise, I can pray that God will "bless" her,
a similar vague transmission of good will. If I needed something more
urgent-say getting a friend rescued from a foreign jail--I'd have to work
harder to get Mr. Bush's attention, but I would surely try, and keep trying.
Just like those miners in the dark, and their families above, who were going
to pray for rescue, no matter what their theology was the day before the
cave-in. You couldn't stop them.
Whether the person in need is Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist (or a Buddhist with a
Christian upbringing), this impulse to pray in times of need-whether for
strength or actual deliverance is nearly universal. This variety is evident
among Beliefnet's prayer circles, in which some users ask for strength and
others ask for direct intervention for a job, or a child.
For some, the idea of a God who can be persuaded to turn our way seems to
trivialize God, even to insult him. It's too anthropomorphic; instead, they'd
say, God must be serene above our crushing pains and desires. He wouldn't
care whether the miners' lives end together now or separately a few decades
later. He must be similarly immune to requests for a good parking place, a
bumper crop of tomatoes, or for Jimmy to ask Shirley to the prom. Given the
choice of a floating, impersonal God who doesn't care or a busy executive who
might care sometimes, the former clearly has more dignity.
But there's a whole third possibility, more startling and somewhat
unsettling. What if God is much, much closer to us than a nameless fog, or
even a distant powerful guy? What if he is intimately familiar with every
detail of our lives, and knows us inside out? Little brown sparrows swoop on
the crumbs outside McDonald's; we ignore them, but "not one of them is
forgotten before God," Jesus said. "Why, even the hairs of your head are all
numbered." God is actually with us, *within* us--"the Kingdom of God within
you"--every minute, like a hand in a glove.
There is nothing you do that he doesn't see. What happens in a bedroom or a
bathroom is no surprise to him; he designed those bodies in the first place.
Our thoughts are laid bare as well. "Where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are
there."
Unnerving, yes. It's worse than being a kid with a hovering mommy; she has to
sleep *sometime*, but God, never. What makes it bearable is that God loves us
better than fallible parents ever could. That's the whole reason behind the
astonishing plan to become one of us, walk on this earth, and give his life
so ours could be saved.
So the miners in the dark didn't have to hope that, if enough people prayed
loud enough, God might wake up and pay attention. He was already there, "in
the midst of you," as everywhere, inside every terrified heart. He knows our
prayers before we speak them ("You discern my thoughts from afar…before a
word is on my tongue you know it altogether").
But he still wants us to speak them. "Prayer changes things" the bumper
sticker says; it doesn't change God, it changes us, connecting us to each
other in compassion, connecting us to God in humility and gratitude. He
doesn't need our prayers, but we do; they put us in tune with him, in tune
with the melody just under the surface of all creation.
Of course, we wouldn't be so full of gratitude today if there hadn't been a
real possibility-even a likelihood-that these lives would be lost. God is
both all-powerful and all love, and we still aren't guaranteed that we'll get
what we urgently want. This puzzle confounds us humans, who struggle to
balance factors like free will, the limits of nature, and unseen hungry evil
seeking our hurt. Somehow in the end God's will will be done, just as a
master chess player winds up defeating a lesser opponent, no matter how many
setbacks there are along the way.
We were prepared to see, not just setback, but tragedy; we were not prepared
for nine coal-smeared faces to ascend from murky depths and stand blinking in
the Sunday morning light. It was a heck of a production; no wonder we believe
God did it. But this act was only a prologue. He will do more than that.
********
Frederica Mathewes-Green
www.frederica.com
