Anger at God

During recent tragedy one thing that's changed is my conception about being angry with God. To be clear, I'm not sure I can say I have ever been angry with God in my life. Some may ask why, and it's likely because I've never really taken the absolutist, omnipotent, or total control of every worldly detail view of God. I believe God is only omnipotent as they have access to all power, and even then I understand that a belief in a just God obviates the ability to believe in an omnipotent God as certain laws greater than that God must then be followed. I've also believed strongly in free will, and that God's protection or preservation thereof is a necessary condition for their existence, or at least their Godhood. However, I am also convinced in a personal God, one who cares deeply for their children and wishes involvement in their lives (but like any good parent, must limit their involvement to allow independence to develop).

I find the parental analogy very compelling, and this has led me to an interesting thought on being angry with God. A quick search on being angry with God will reveal how many people are uncomfortable with the idea. It feels blasphemous, perhaps, but I think there's one person who's quite OK with people being angry at God and that's God themself.

My wife and I hope to have kids, and that hope's no longer in the distant future, so I've read the occasional article about parenting, discussed it with friends and family, and tried to gain what experience I can watching over others' children. I've learned that a mature adult generally weathers the storm and is understanding of a child's anger, even though it often ends up pointed toward them, without becoming upset or angry about the situation themselves. Good parents understand and allow their children to become angry, they often don't take it personally, and recognize that they may have to accept their child's fury themselves because understanding the larger situation is beyond the child (at least at this point in their development).

Some of this thinking may have come together when a friend of mine who is a mother took a sip of her son's drink, leading to a short spat of crying and yelling, "I didn't want you to do that!" over and over. That moment seemed so childish, crying out wishing an event hadn't happened but not providing any ideas for redress or seemingly unwilling to come to an understanding or acceptance of the painful reality of what's occurred, and yet it also seemed so familiar as I and my loved ones were often doing the same only our yells were, "I wish she hadn't died." This may seem uncaring on my part to compare a child's displeasure and losing out on a sip of milk to the death of a loved one, but from God's perspective it might not be so different, and again I find the similarities of the emotional turmoil experienced eerily similar.

Yes, I'm certainly speaking from a Christian perspective here, but I've tried to ensure I'm speaking in the most general terms. If you're an atheist, agnostic, or otherwise unaligned or undecided allow me to speak to you a little more closely at this time, and if you're one of my Christian or otherwise theistic audience members lend me some latitude for a moment. One of the important roles of God is that of an abstraction, or even verbal shorthand. Some theists like to make much of Einstein's very profound theism, but the God of Einstein probably more resembled the impersonal physical laws pervading all creation through all time than the proverbial sky daddy in which many of them might profess faith. From this perspective anger at God is easy to understand; we're angry at the whims of fortune that brought us to our current place (and hey, like the ancient myth-makers knew when they came up with Thor, Ares, or Sopona it's more cathartic to personify your ill fate than to allow it to persist ethereal).

So I think God completely accepts our anger towards them. That said, anger isn't a healthy emotion. Without even addressing the psychology, it increases blood pressure and depresses the immune system so it is unwise to maintain for long periods of time. I think this is why forgiveness is so powerful, and so important. The concept of forgiveness is often abused, taken to mean we can't treat people or entities with suspicion or coolness when that may be exactly what is deserved, but I think forgiveness starts with releasing the feelings of rancor and hatred toward others. Forgiveness can go beyond that, but often anything beyond that requires penitence on the part of the trespasser, so the beginning may well be the most important part of forgiveness if only because it will be the most often used.

Whether one conceives of God as a loving cosmic Allfather or even as an impersonal cosmic force permeating the universe and seen in its structure and beauty we can accept anger toward God, and perhaps even recognize it as necessary at times. When to move beyond this anger, to forgive God and once again connect with the omnipresent divinity will depend on the individual and is likely to be a difficult task. I pray those in need may do so, and hope these meager thoughts on the matter help.

Your Moral Earth's Magnetic Field

I've heard people talk about how important their moral compass is to them.  What this means can be something different to any different person, but one definition that I think matches most people's conception is, "a natural feeling that makes people know what is right and wrong and how they should behave."  Are the natural feelings we have really what should make us know what's right and wrong?

Doing what's natural may not be a terrible basis for morality, but it's not a good one either.  We have a number of pack animal and cooperative instincts that guide us toward some caring and concern for our fellow man (and remember man is gender neutral in this context).  These also create an aversion toward malice in many contexts, which is also good.  Our instincts don't stop with these, 'love your neighbor' drives though.

Being a pack animal leads to a set of instincts, and while some of those are positive like what's stated above others are decidedly negative.  It leads to a tribalism, probably due to competition with other packs.  We protect our own, but those who aren't are own are usually fair targets for whatever we can dish out.  This is why looking at history we only seem to have been fighting against racism, sexism, or similar discrimination for about a century or two, and to some even that's being quite generous.  There's also significant drives to personal status and individual gain.  We want the pack to be strong, but we also want to be the head of the pack (or at least be very secure about our position in it) and there's a good chance we're willing to trade the good of our group for a high position in it, too.  This is why children throw tantrums, politicians and important businessman are as willing to admit mistakes as they are to part with teeth, and people gossip about the shortcomings of acquaintances.

This leads me back to the idea of a moral compass.  Truthfully, I think it's a good analogy as long as we remember one thing: a compass doesn't operate in a vacuum.  A compass is a magnetized needle set on a spindle (or sometimes in other ways, such as suspended in a liquid).  It points to the north because it aligns itself with the Earth's magnetic field.  In morality, this leads to the question that might be much more important than how is your moral compass, but what is your moral Earth's magnetic field.

What things external to ourselves help us understand what is moral and what is not?  Is it divine scripture?  Public opinion and associated feelings of dignity or shame?  Articulate and interesting discussions on ethics?  All of these have flaws which must be examined and guarded against and all have certain merits as well.  Compasses can be disrupted by anything that produces strong magnetic fields, like high electrical current.  Precise navigation may also require an adjustment between magnetic north and 'true north' since the Earth's magnetic poles aren't perfectly aligned with her north and south poles.  Just like a compass will not point true in a lightning storm or around power lines we should learn where our moral compass may fail to point us true and why if we want to stay true to our moral north wherever we go.

Waiting

"Patience is a virtue," everyone says.  Often one hears a response along the lines, "Yes, but it's one I don't have."  I feel like this response misses the mark terribly and perpetuates the foolhardy idea that our virtues (or vices, often) are just something we are born with and will end up living life according to.  It undermines the idea that we humans are free and have the power to act for ourselves, debasing man to nothing more than an animal, or even the earth, water, air, or other elements of nature.  Since, as you may have noticed, the author finds this idea somewhat repugnant he will often retort with something like, "And we must learn to develop virtues."

Patience is, or at least is often perceived to be, how we handle waiting.  Do we sit quietly, do we fidget, do we pace up and down?  There has been an odd change recently that has caused us to think many things should happen instantaneously.  When I worked as a camp counselor the employee use computers were very obsolete and of course ran quite slowly.  Rather than disparaging the frustrating situation I came to refer to these as the "Zen computers."  I try to take this sort of attitude toward a lot of waiting; standing in a line, downloading a webpage, or standing at the bus stop can be great opportunities to think and observe our thinking.

Often waiting frustrates us because we feel such a drive to get our next task finished or such desire to have whatever we'll get after the wait.  I've had to adjust lately to some of these feelings myself.  I recently changed from a company that would give me a weekly paycheck to one that pays every two weeks.  This means I have to wait longer when I want to make a payment on my student loans, credit card, rent, cable bill, or anything else.  I've had to do slightly more planning ahead, but the bigger deal is becoming comfortable with things the way they are until I have the resources to change them.  I think this is the greater principle here.  Often we get frustrated, aggravated, or just plain angry when we're forced to wait because it's such a clear signal that there's something we can't control.  Facing our limitations is always humbling, and many don't wish to be humbled.

Lately I've also been waiting to get married.  This has been one of the most interesting experiences I've had in learning to wait.  I feel such deep desire toward my beloved as well as a certain sense that I won't be taking the next step in my life until the wedding day has come.  I'm learning a lot when about enjoying the experiences I'm having even while wanting so much more.  I think this is what we're really seeking when we talk about learning delayed gratification.

It's easy to view waiting as something onerous and obnoxious.  It's common to equate a wait with a difficulty.  I think waiting is a great way to learn, especially about ourselves.  Know thyself, the saying goes, and while doing things is important we also need to take time to get to know ourselves in a more intimate setting.  Waiting is a great way to do that.