WTF?

What a time to be home, where there is cable. (For those of you not in the know, the current post is brought to you from the Montreal suburbs, where I am visiting with my family for the holidays.)
With the TV on all day, as my father likes it, I can keep a close tab on the rising death toll in Southeast Asia. I can see the new footage as it reaches the TV stations, and watch the same wave obliterate the same chunk of shoreline, hear the same Indian woman weep and wail as the tsunami throws the biggest possible wrench in her wedding day, every hour, on the hour. I am being morbidly infotained against my will and better judgement, but have been unwilling to ponder the dark and wormy questions this raises, too preoccupied with the all-consuming joy that is the dominant feature in my life at this time. (Again, for those not in the know--there just may be two or three of you out there--I am spectacularily in love, and it ain't with Wilco this time.) Until this morning.

I should've paid heed to the title of U2's new album before approaching my Bible today--because the thing did go off like a bomb in my face. And has prompted the question of the day--though isn't it, really, the same question, everyday?--which is, What the fuck?

Here's how it went. My morning and evening prayers are governed by the Book of Alternative Services of the Anglican Church of Canada (which is the North-of-the-border equivalent of the Episcopalian Church.) It guides me through a series of psalms, Scripture readings, collects, canticles, litanies and prayers. It got troublesome right away, as I decided to use Psalm 67 for the Invitatory (which is a call to worship.)

God be merciful to us and bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us,Selah

²That Your way may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.

³Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.

⁴Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy!
For You shall judge the people righteously,
And govern the nations on earth. Selah

⁵Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.

⁶Then the earth shall yield her increase;
God, our own God, shall bless us.

⁷God shall bless us,
And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.

The earth shall what? Yield her increase? Are you kidding? Which nations, exactly, are singing for joy? My translation has saving health for salvation in verse 2. As the death toll threatens to multiply beyond our--anyway, my--capacity to grasp the numbers due to impending disease.

It went on from there. Next up I got slammed by Psalm 18, the first part.

¹ I will love You, O LORD, my strength.

²The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

³I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from my enemies.

⁴The pangs of death surrounded me,
And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

⁵The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.

⁶In my distress I called upon the LORD,
And cried out to my God;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry came before Him, even to His ears.

⁷Then the earth shook and trembled;
The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken,
Because He was angry.

⁸Smoke went up from His nostrils,
And devouring fire from His mouth;
Coals were kindled by it.

⁹He bowed the heavens also, and came down
With darkness under His feet.

¹⁰And He rode upon a cherub, and flew;
He flew upon the wings of the wind.

¹¹He made darkness His secret place;
His canopy around Him was dark waters
And thick clouds of the skies.

¹²From the brightness before Him,
His thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire.

¹³The LORD thundered from heaven,
And the Most High uttered His voice,
Hailstones and coals of fire.<sup>[a]

14</sup>He sent out His arrows and scattered the foe,
Lightnings in abundance, and He vanquished them.

¹⁵Then the channels of the sea were seen,
The foundations of the world were uncovered
At Your rebuke, O LORD,
At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

¹⁶He sent from above, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.

¹⁷He delivered me from my strong enemy,
From those who hated me,
For they were too strong for me.

¹⁸They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
But the LORD was my support.

¹⁹He also brought me out into a broad place;
He delivered me because He delighted in me.

²⁰The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands
He has recompensed me.



There was just no way to read this psalm this morning without thinking of the thousands upon thousands who cried out to the heavens, to the Lord whom, for all that they may not profess belief in Him (as though this should matter), nevertheless desires to be their stronghold, and were not plucked out of the great waters. Impossible to read without thinking of the many who didn't even have a moment, a breath to cry out with. Eighty thousand and counting. The morning after Christmas.

As water shortages and unburied bodies threaten the population that survived the devouring waves I am instructed to read, in John 7:37, how Jesus said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." I am no literalist--I'm a friggin' poet--but I cannot help but ask, What the fuck? What do I make of all this, here, with my beer and my blog and my Bible, with my heart chock-full of love and hope and belief, belief in a loving, caring, concerned God who, up until Sunday morning, knew of each hair on the head of each of the thousands upon thousands of departed, just as he knows each hair on my head?

I'm not even done yet. Follows the canticle, which today is Song of Creation 1 (Song of the Three 35-51--can anyone tell me what this is and where else it is found?)

....

The Cosmic Order

Glorify the Lord, you angels and all powers of the Lord,
O heavens and all waters above the heavens.
Sun and moon and stars of the sky, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, every shower of rain and fall of dew,
all wind and fire and heat.
Winter and summer, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O chill and cold,
drops of dew and flakes of snow.
Frost and cold, ice and sleet, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O nights and days,
O shining light and enfolding dark.
Storm clouds and thunderbolts, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

....


Praise the Lord you tremors of the earth, you murderous waves, you ravenous and careless waves. Praise the Lord, and highly exalt him for ever, you mudslides, you open graves, you upturned railroads. Glorify the Lord you outbreaks of disease, you poisoned wells, you ravaged villages, you torn people, you weeping, ravaged people. Praise him, and highly exalt him for ever. Dead and orphaned children by the thousands, praise him.

My faith, today, these days, is not shaken. This doesn't have a real enough grip on me to shake me. When I pray, today, I believe, Lord--help my unbelief, I pray for my unbelief in numbers and images, pray for my utter inability to grasp the reality of the situation, to grieve for it. What I pray for is the strenght not only to ask What the fuck? when liturgy forces me to see that creation, all day everyday, is in the business of praise, and that this does not exclude the earthquake or the following tsunami, but also to follow up, to inquire, in the light of these events--What, then, is praise?

My questions are as old as the hills. This is the most worrisome part--much better minds, and hearts, than mine have looked and looked for answers. I don't know that any have been found. But there is nothing else to do, not one other thing, when your world has been wiped and ripped and you find yourself alive, bewildered--saved--than to reach for the smallest, closest thing, and to start picking up the pieces.

Let us start, then.

Surely the Psalms are one of the better places to start, even though they tend to behave like bombs.