Little Disappointments

I enjoy crossword puzzles, although I haven't been doing them lately, but I couldn't resist the one in the paper labeled "Drill, Baby, Drill." I thought it might be a political satire in crossword form, and I was encouraged by the first answer I wrote in: "bias." I had visions of Sarah Palin and BP showing up between the crosshatches. I worked away, hoping for the punch line, only to discover that the puzzle's theme was actually dentists and puns dentistical: "brushing bride" and "moment of tooth."

Speaking of the Palin crowd, I heard the reporting on Sharron Angle's response to an interviewer who asked her whether abortion was ever okay. Her reply was no. The interviewer then asked about cases of incest and rape, and Angle's response was one of those God Trump Cards that shuts down any further discussion. She said: You know, I'm a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.

Angle has taken a lot of flack about this, perhaps rightly so, with most folks jumping to the conclusion that Angle believes rape and incest are God's plan. I don't think she meant to go there, although her politics in action might boil down to the same thing as if she did, but I was reminded how placidly we can see a difficult destiny for someone else as God's plan. And how infuriating it is, if you're the one suffering, to be fobbed off that way. It is not easy to see our misfortunes as blessings -- or to be told to do so by someone more or less well-meaning. I'm not arguing that we don't learn through difficult situations, but sometimes suffering is just suffering, and the "God will take care of it" answer is just not answer enough.

Even if it were the only answer, most of us would need some sympathetic validation of the unfairness of our situation, some tea and cookies, or an understanding friend.

So, take Jonah. When God tells him to go to Nineveh, he goes the other direction. As a child in Vacation Bible School, I believed that Jonah brought his own fate on himself -- being swallowed by a whale and having to do what God told him to do after all. Why wasn't Jonah being good and doing what he was told? (I was an obedient child.)

Now, I have a lot more sympathy for Jonah. I may yet die in my own big fish. Certainly, I hope not to have to go to the modern equivalent of Nineveh or somewhere worse. And if Sharron Angle tells me that is my fate, she better look like she's at least sorry about it.