When someone messes with how you've ordered or organized or understood something, lament ensues. Always. Whatever your spiritual background, church, or theology, if we're honest with ourselves, both believers and atheists alike can think of a time when life felt like nothing more than an ass kicking of painful and chaotic events. The adage "life is what happens when we're busy making other plans" holds true, and usually those other plans we were busy making involved things that were joyful and positive, that brought us satisfaction.
So when the apple cart is upset, when the tables are turned and everything gets flipped upside down on us, it is no wonder we feel like life pulled one over and betrayed us, disrupting our plans and our dreams, tossing them aside unapologetically. Life just gave us the middle finger and didn't give a second thought to how we might feel about it.
This is normally a great spot to start a sermon, to assure oneself and others that no matter how bad life gets, we're safe in God's hands, and nothing can separate us from God's love, etc etc. And maybe I should do that. But lately, that kind of response doesn't seem to provide as much comfort as it once did. When your faith shifts, like Kathy Escobar's describes in her book, your view changes and you start to reconstruct a way of thinking and believing that operates differently, that might even draw insight from someone like Edward O. Wilson.
One of the world's preeminent biologists and naturalists, in his book The Meaning of Human Existence, Wilson believes that "the brain was made for religion and religion for the human brain." To say that Wilson rejects the notion of a personal God would be an understatement.
"As Carl Jung once said, some problems can never be solved, only outgrown...the problem is not in the nature or even in the existence of God. It is in the biological origins of human existence and in the nature of the human mind...The best way to live in this real world is to free ourselves of demons and tribal gods." pg 158
Often times people of faith wait on God to take away their problems, to open a door when we experience closed door after closed door. Instead of taking action ourselves, we expect, even demand, answers and action from on high. I appreciate Wilson's emphasis on the ability of our species to survive and thrive in the face of adversity--to call attention to our problems being just that, our problems, stuff we got ourselves into one way or another--and that we are more than capable often times to outgrow, out maneuver and create new ways forward, however painful and chaotic circumstances may be.
So if you're feeling stuck or caught in a vicious spiral of doubt, grief or fill in the blank personal trial, maybe it's time to take away something constructive from Wilson's book by dropping the wishful thinking model of faith and adopting a more informed, critical-thinking, open-minded and action-oriented faith or way of interacting with life's circumstances.
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