Studying Job (where anticipation and reality are forever only nearly meeting)

Depiction of Job by French painter Léon Bonnat (Wikimedia Commons)

I've always wanted to do a short story or novella based on the Book of Job, and I did start one; I finished a chapter that retells the court scene in heaven where Satan bets God he can turn Job against him.

(Job is considered the oldest book in the bible, and it’s fitting that an ancient book investigates such an ancient question: Why do bad things happen to good people? It’s also an epic premise. Milton knew the potential of the delicious villain long before Indiana Jones was fighting Nazis; in fact, he was criticized for making his Satan too heroic in Paradise Lost).

Pastor Robert Appold at St Matthew Lutheran Church taught me something on Feb 9th that I’d never heard before: Job is about faith when there is no reward.

I thank Pastor Rob for this insight. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered it myself. The bible is rife with examples and paraphrases of that idea. There may be another very good answer, but I like this one. It grows out of our daily struggle with senseless tragedy but avoids the trite and unhelpful “the answer is there is no answer,” which is no answer at all.

And it makes sense outside a biblical context - at work, in marriages, families, friendships - where anticipation and reality often run parallel, forever only nearly meeting, like receding train tracks.

(Everything reduces to psychological egoism if we want it to, just as everything reduces to subatomic particles, charges, spins, etc. That doesn't mean there is no meaning from distances at which these things fall into patterns.)

I have a series of prayers I pray every day, ending with a sort of ‘free form Dear Jesus” in which I just talk about family and work and such.

There are days I cannot do even that, and I only pray  ”have mercy on me, a sinner.”

[2014-02-09]

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There are a  couple paragraphs here that are very good, and stand out apart from their context and meaning. I fear sometimes beautiful little turns like this will go unnoticed since few readers will follow me that far, even if only for a moment. Unlike memes and videos and infographics, words are work.

[2014-02-18]

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