Reality Check

Needless to say -- as I'm sure it has escaped no one's notice by now that I am an inveterate atheist -- finding time for prayer is not a difficulty I anticipate having with motherhood.

I'm pretty sure Fredrik and I had this discussion before, as I felt a strong deja vu after reading this article. But what I can't get over is the bit about how the first woman's faith was tested when watching her mother-in-law die.

It is an extremely common story. I had faith in God, then something bad happened to me or near me, and that shook my faith. Of course, it always ends with the person's faith being restored along with a new sense of God's mysterious ways or some such; otherwise the story wouldn't be told.

The thing I always wonder about these people whose faith takes a beating when something bad happens to them is: are they delightfully sheltered and obtuse, or are they simply self-centered and smug? As far as I can see, these are the only two options.

By the time you're old enough to watch your 82-year old mother-in-law go through a long period of suffering before death, you ought to be acutely aware of the fact that suffering happens, and that many people in the world endure much worse. I am not by any means trying to diminish the pain that this woman went through before succumbing to death, and it is rare that I would advocate any "ratings system" for how horrible one situation is compared to another. But that death often comes after pain and suffering, especially for people toward the end of our average life span, cannot -- or SHOULD not -- be a surprise to anyone, and when placed in comparison to the kind of lives that are led by starving children and mistreated women in war-torn countries, I find it odd that it would be the common and inevitable that would shake a person's faith.

So like I said, the first option is that a person having this experience has simply led a life so free from information from the outside world that they are unaware such suffering, and much worse, exists. At some point -- in the case of this woman I'd have to estimate at mid-life -- they see some version of it with their own eyes and, amazingly, are shocked.

The second option is that these people of faith are well aware of the fact that the clothes on their backs have most likely been sewn by children in sweat shops where $1 separates them from actual technical slavery, or that children in their own country can be mowed down in the middle of the street by drunk drivers. The fact that they are not shaken until suffering enters their own lives, that their own pain can make them reflect on what God is up to, would therefore seem to suggest that they've lived a life lacking in humility. "That people suffer tremendously in this world is something I am aware of and it has never given me pause about God, but that I should suffer phases me, as I am different -- special, better than others, and God isn't supposed to punish me."

Perhaps I appear incredibly unfair and hypocritical. But bear with me, it's subtle. I fully respect the right of a person to cry bitterly over a hang-nail if the hang-nail is the worst thing that has ever happened to them. But only if they can do so while acknowledging that other people suffer as well, and that their hang-nail just might be small beans to another person. That's the most important part of having empathy for another person, is understanding that the pain they feel cannot be measured by putting a metric on the triggering event, as if it can all be put on a scale. And there are few of us who haven't had the experience of understanding a situation or a hardship better only when we have experienced it ourselves.

That's exactly why I raise my eyebrows at this "God" aspect of insight or lack thereof; it's why I can be amazed at a 40+ year old mother having her first or strongest epiphany about how the life that she believes was endowed by and is controlled by an omnipotent being isn't always fair -- and more importantly, coming out on the other side of the experience without modifying the skewed view of how terrible and tragic your own situation and suffering are in the grand scheme of things. These stories always end with "and then she found her faith in God again" -- like I said, otherwise they wouldn't be told, because there's no news value in "and so she finally came to her senses" -- but not because she comes to realize that her own suffering was really minor in the vast cesspool of all that is wrong with the world, not because she realizes that "Hey, my mother-in-law was 82 years old, had children, grandchildren, a fulfilling, long life," etc., but because she somehow finds a support group that convinces her that God works in mysterious ways and that he has a reason for inflicting unspeakable hardship on his better quality minions.

I react strongly because I have intimate, first-hand experience with how this kind of golden opportunity for a person to develop a little more understanding for their fellow man is totally lost in favor of some sort of bolstering modification of ones own sense of superiority and worth of pity. So I'm reacting more to those people than to the woman in the article, who I, of course, do not know, and I can't say that she doesn't now spend a few weeks each year feeding the poor in Africa and teaching her children how that might fit into God's grand scheme. No, you're right, I certainly don't spend a few weeks each year feeding the poor in Africa, either. But I am not in the difficult position of justifying myself in regards to a faith that would encourage me to do so.

I'll refrain from saying that, since she's Catholic, her attitude toward Africa is more likely to be saving them from condoms than savings them from starvation. Damn, I didn't refrain. It's like I have tics.