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defining moment
Nov. 26th, 2020 03:09 pmI recently read that Kurt Vonnegut claimed writers have a defining moment that more or less informs their oeuvre. He said that his was the realization that his parents weren't happy, but could have been, and why weren't they. I leave it to you to decide if that concept is lying within his works. But it got me thinking about a moment that I have long felt is definitive for me.
I remember that I was eleven, and it was summer, and I was alone, lying face down in the front yard, closely examining the grass. (I thought of it as scientific curiosity.) And I suddenly found myself thinking about world hunger. Looking back now, that strikes me as an odd topic for a kid to be dwelling on out of nowhere. But I also remember that there were a lot of TV commercials for charities in the sixties, and we were frequently presented with the sight of starving dark children -- they were always dark, I couldn't help but notice, even though we didn't have a colour TV yet. The point being, the concept of world hunger was never far from our awareness for long. So I was thinking about it on this summer afternoon.
And it occurred to me that either we couldn't solve the problem of hunger, or we could but didn't. Meaning that we were either helpless in the face of a cruel universe, or that we were cruel ourselves.
And then I got thinking about God. Which also wasn't odd, since I was raised in a devout Fundamentalist Baptist household, and considered myself a believing Christian. I was taught that God was all-powerful, all-loving, and all-good. But, again, either God couldn't solve the problem of hunger, or He could but didn't. Which meant that either He was not all-powerful, or not all-good. I didn't carry the thought to the point of "this doesn't make any sense", but I went as far as "this is a lot more complicated than anyone lets on. There are problems here that the people in church don't want to deal with."
There is a Bible verse where Jesus says, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." In church, I was taught that "asking something in Jesus's name" meant "praying in accordance with God's will". As in The Lord's Prayer: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Another Bible verse says, "The Lord is not willing that any should perish". I was taught that "perish" here did not refer to physical death, but meant being consigned to hell. So, possibly, the physical deaths of starving people "wasn't as important". But here it seemed to me that all we needed to do was pray, "Lord, in Jesus's name, I pray that no one gets sent to hell". If both those verses are true, then that should take care of it -- all of humanity is now saved. But any church person will assure you that it doesn't work that way. No one had explained to my satisfaction why it didn't. [No one has yet. Again, more complicated than anyone wanted to let on.] I also had some trouble with the concept of praying that God's will be done: I didn't see how that differed from saying, "Dear Lord, please do whatever You want", or even "Dear Lord, please do whatever You were going to do anyway if I didn't bother praying". I mean, does He not do what He wants if we don't ask Him to do something?
Anyway, I ended up facing the prospect that, in a world created and ruled by a loving omnipotent God, people would continue to die of hunger, and that the ensuing helplessness and/or cruelty were inevitable. It was the first time I could remember feeling depressed.
And when I finally went back inside, my mom could see that something was getting me down, and she asked me what was wrong. And I told her "nothing". Because I was sure she wouldn't understand or accept. It was also the first time I could remember feeling so alienated from my parents.
These issues have returned to haunt me again and again for over fifty years. I still haven't sorted it out to my satisfaction. And I feel like anyone who figures they have got it sorted out, hasn't really thought about it enough.
I remember that I was eleven, and it was summer, and I was alone, lying face down in the front yard, closely examining the grass. (I thought of it as scientific curiosity.) And I suddenly found myself thinking about world hunger. Looking back now, that strikes me as an odd topic for a kid to be dwelling on out of nowhere. But I also remember that there were a lot of TV commercials for charities in the sixties, and we were frequently presented with the sight of starving dark children -- they were always dark, I couldn't help but notice, even though we didn't have a colour TV yet. The point being, the concept of world hunger was never far from our awareness for long. So I was thinking about it on this summer afternoon.
And it occurred to me that either we couldn't solve the problem of hunger, or we could but didn't. Meaning that we were either helpless in the face of a cruel universe, or that we were cruel ourselves.
And then I got thinking about God. Which also wasn't odd, since I was raised in a devout Fundamentalist Baptist household, and considered myself a believing Christian. I was taught that God was all-powerful, all-loving, and all-good. But, again, either God couldn't solve the problem of hunger, or He could but didn't. Which meant that either He was not all-powerful, or not all-good. I didn't carry the thought to the point of "this doesn't make any sense", but I went as far as "this is a lot more complicated than anyone lets on. There are problems here that the people in church don't want to deal with."
There is a Bible verse where Jesus says, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." In church, I was taught that "asking something in Jesus's name" meant "praying in accordance with God's will". As in The Lord's Prayer: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Another Bible verse says, "The Lord is not willing that any should perish". I was taught that "perish" here did not refer to physical death, but meant being consigned to hell. So, possibly, the physical deaths of starving people "wasn't as important". But here it seemed to me that all we needed to do was pray, "Lord, in Jesus's name, I pray that no one gets sent to hell". If both those verses are true, then that should take care of it -- all of humanity is now saved. But any church person will assure you that it doesn't work that way. No one had explained to my satisfaction why it didn't. [No one has yet. Again, more complicated than anyone wanted to let on.] I also had some trouble with the concept of praying that God's will be done: I didn't see how that differed from saying, "Dear Lord, please do whatever You want", or even "Dear Lord, please do whatever You were going to do anyway if I didn't bother praying". I mean, does He not do what He wants if we don't ask Him to do something?
Anyway, I ended up facing the prospect that, in a world created and ruled by a loving omnipotent God, people would continue to die of hunger, and that the ensuing helplessness and/or cruelty were inevitable. It was the first time I could remember feeling depressed.
And when I finally went back inside, my mom could see that something was getting me down, and she asked me what was wrong. And I told her "nothing". Because I was sure she wouldn't understand or accept. It was also the first time I could remember feeling so alienated from my parents.
These issues have returned to haunt me again and again for over fifty years. I still haven't sorted it out to my satisfaction. And I feel like anyone who figures they have got it sorted out, hasn't really thought about it enough.
