"Precariousness"

Well, again I've been out of the saddle for a while. My wife had another surprise on her road to restored health, which she has successfully addressed. (I won't go into detail here. If you're interested, contact me at poseg8@sbcglobal.net.)

This has been quite a journey for her over the last two months. It's a journey she's handled faithfully and well. As I've said, she and I have been reminded of a truth which we too often try to ignore in comfortable cultures. The truth is this: life is precarious. There is an unpredictability to life that all of our efforts at control cannot factor away. In Western cultures, among those of means and privilege, we like to convince ourselves that we can, in fact, manage or overcome unpredictability. If we just get enough insurance, take enough vitamins, lose enough weight, secure enough protection, amass enough money, put enough safety devices on our children, learn enough science, etc. etc., then nothing in life will surprise us. We give light-hearted lip service to one another, chuckling and saying, "Well, you never know...", but we actually feel a subtle entitlement to buffered safety. We even build our theologies around this, assuming that God's primary job is to protect us from all ills.

I'm not saying we should abandon those elements of life over which we've had control. Over the last two months I've prayed for, longed for, and waited for every shred of medical knowledge and procedures that are under human control. However, from a faith standpoint, I wonder. I wonder about those of us who live lives of material comfort. Could our illusion of control be the very thing that keeps our spiritual hunger high, but keeps our actual embracing of the truth which is God very low? Other cultures that have a head-on awareness of the "precariousness" of life may have less difficulty banking it all on God, believing God to be the available and active constant in a world full of unpredictable variables.

What do you think? I'll see you around the next bend in the river, hopefully.