Pleading Uncertainty, We Flee God

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A man and woman from Washington, D.C., who quit their jobs to bike around the world, were killed in an attack in Tajikistan a few weeks ago.

The couple, Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, both 29, had been on the road for just over a year. Living off their savings, they kept a frugal budget and expected to travel until the money ran out.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack that ended their lives and those of two other foreign bicyclists.

With all that is happening in the world – from the mess of politics to mass shootings to reports of sexual assaults by nearly everyone, it seems – it’s awfully hard to find God.

Bad Joke?
Doesn’t it seem, at times, that the world has become a bad joke? That nothing goes right and no one does right? I’m reminded of the Letter of Paul to the Romans in which he was in a particularly sour mood. Paraphrasing a psalm, he wrote:

There is not a good man left, not one;
There is not one who understands,
Not one who looks for God.
All have turned aside, tainted all alike;
There is not one good man left, not a single one.

In my opinion, this is more perception than reality – in Paul’s time and in ours. On their blog, in fact, the bicycling couple described the kindness and generosity of strangers around the world as they biked through Africa, Europe and central Asia.

Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan
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"Badness exists, sure, but even that's quite rare. By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind. No greater revelation has come from our journey than this."

That’s certainly not the impression about the current state of humankind you get from watching NBC’s Nightly News, reading the New York Times or listening to public radio. And that is, to a great extent, because of the nature of “news,” at least the way journalists see it.

For them, “news” is something out-of-the-ordinary that has a great impact on people’s lives. “Sun Comes up This Morning” isn’t news, although it has a great impact. It comes up every morning. “Price of Chewing Gum Peaks” may be out-of-the-ordinary but isn’t news because it has only a slight impact on most people.

So, by definition, “news” is bound to be “negative,” because it reports what isn’t going as expected. And there has been an explosion in access to news sources. Happenings in Twin Rut, Ia. that wouldn’t have caught national attention 25 years ago gets wide coverage today. We’re now bombarded with bad news.

The World is Chaotic
Of course, it’s not just a matter of the definition of news. The world is chaotic. But religion, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is an antidote because by its nature it’s optimistic. Says Psalm 37:

Don’t worry about the wicked,
Don’t envy those who do wrong.
Quick as grass they wither,
Fading like the green in the field.
Trust God and do what is good…

Many of us are reluctant to trust, even (or maybe especially) God. So, we plead uncertainty and flee from his/her peace. English poet and mystic Francis Thompson, who knew the depths of despair because of his medical addiction to opium, also knew about the tendency to flee God, even in the midst of chaos. This is from his The Hound of Heaven.

I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears
I hid from him, and under running laughter.

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