So, a few things I am thinking about today as I drag my feet through Genesis 18:
1. The nature of blessing. Z and I were discussing this at length yesterday after reading an except from this awesome book The idea, I think, is that a blessing is something in which you participate. Awesomely, my new pastor said it best: from opportunity comes joy. I think blessings are those things that allow you to come closer to God -- which really expands the nature of blessing.
2. Marriage being a blessing. I have to say, I married Z. without thinking much about it. we didn't go to counseling; I didn't make a lists of pros and cons. I prayed, but I think I felt sure it was the right thing to do before I prayed, so that prayer may have been more one sided than one would hope. And my feeling sometimes is that it was a misstep, because Z and I have so little in common.
But it is probably the very best thing God could have done for me. I have grown so much (and still have so much room to grow. He pushes me -- without even realizing it, I think -- so that even though his experience of God and faith feels incoherent to me, sometimes, it also challenges mine. Most of all, he is an un-self-conscious advocate of the basic and fundamental reality that I have struggled with so much in my life: the world is good.
And this is so deeply entrenched in the Bible that I am appalled that I could have missed it so entirely, could still have to say it and, like, reflect on it, and come to it again, as a new conclusion, almost every day. Praising God is good, yes. Christian fellowship is good, yes. But so many other things are good, too! Sex is good. Eating a meal is good. Taking a walk and going grocery shopping and reading a novel -- not just the Bible -- and, heck, watching a movie -- those are good, too. Having a beer with friends: good! Gardening with mom: good! Listening to people, not as a service, but as a means of connection to them: good!
The world is worth working to save, to help, because it is good. Not because I am good -- which is my temptation, to simultaneously believe that working a fifty hour week for my kids is absolutely critical, but then to not enjoy or truly value a single child because I Am Too Busy.
And here, I think, is where Genesis 18 gets so splendid. Because you see here so clearly that God loves Sodom. He loves it so much that if there were a single good person there, He would spare it. He loves it so much that He would save everything to help a single group of people. He will tolerate so much ugliness to preserve such a small goodness. He wants the world. Even when it is detestable, He wants it. Even when it goes against what is fundamental to Him, He wants it.
The second, more comfortable truth in this story, of course, is the reality that the concessions He has made are still not enough. There aren't ten good people in Sodom; I suspect that, if this story played out to its logical conclusion, what is left unsaid is that there isn't one. The tendency, I think, is to see Lot and his family as the good people -- I remember counting them up as a project to show that they fell short of ten -- but I also remember that Lot, the best the city had to offer, was still offering up his daughters for gang-rape. His wife ends up turned to salt for her lack of commitment; his daughters rape him in his sleep. I would not say these people are righteous. He saves them -- though not the whole city -- because God has to do more than meet us halfway. God offers to meet us halfway, then a quarter, then a single step ahead of where we are -- and when we fail completely, He pulls out Plan B.
This is the nature of God, and it is enough that it should more than quell the anxiety I feel about myself and my life. What a small satisfaction, you know, in feeling like I've done a Good Enough job in my career. Of course that doesn't satisfy: in the best case scenario, I've succeeded in something so ephemeral, so limited, that I still go home needing to binge and purge, needing something I will never, never have or accomplish on my own. The best I have to offer: not enough.
More gloriously, it doesn't have to be. God loves me despite the reality that in myself I have nothing worth loving. Which, you know, would be a pretty shitty feeling, except: I am not in myself. I can isolate myself from God in an effort to be valuable apart from Him -- which won't work -- or I can stay connected to Him and be justified through Him. It comes down to: would I rather be lovable in and of myself, so I can feel proud? Or would I rather be humbled -- and recognize the love that God is willing to pour down on me.
That's a serious question. Some part of me would rather have the terrible things I "deserve" than the wonderful things I can't earn, the things that are all about God's goodness, not mine.
But I believe I can let go of this quixotic mission to Be Enough. And I believe, more solidly, that when I do, God will do everything else. That He wants to.
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