Asking Why in the Garden
Gerald Baron
I attended a funeral the other day and we sang that sweet old hymn, “In the Garden.” The words in part include:
He walks with me
And he talks with me
And he tells me I am his own
And the voice I hear
Falling on my ear
Is so sweet the birds
Hush their singing.
The vast majority of Americans walk and talk with God. Many on a daily basis. Most in a more or less traditional Christian mode, and many with some interesting contemporary wrinkles. My question is this, what do those conversations sound like right now in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in our time?
At this writing, the death toll is climbing toward the 150,000 mark. We have the excruciatingly painful opportunity to witness first hand the devastation and human impacts through the global communications technology we have become accustomed to. Not only do we see the wall of water overcome the seemingly clueless bathing-suited and beer bellied tourists, we also see the shock and overwhelming grief of total and complete loss. Children hanging in trees, likely the only survivors of great, extended families. Entire villages wiped from the earth leaving no trace of the lives, personal histories and belongings behind. Yes, many have different color skin and live in cultures that still seem strange and distant. But the fact that it destroyed tourist areas where most of us can imagine visiting or similar to ones we have visited brings this horrific tragedy a little closer to home.
I too have walked in the garden of that hymn writer. I too have heard the sweet voice falling on my ear. But the garden has a frigid breeze blowing in it now. I wait in a quiet and dark corner for the Gardener to arrive and now I have some questions for Him.
“Yes, I can see that earthquakes and tectonic shifts may be all part of your glorious acts of creation, but couldn’t you have finished all that wild stuff before you put humans on this planet so we didn’t have to be so broken by creation? After all, you apparently messed about with it for five billion years. Couldn’t you finished with the violence first? And, yes, we know that the world is evil and filled with sin and falling away from you, but for God’s sake, this is not evil, this is natural law, this is You in control, this is creation at work as you ordained it. Or are we to conclude that the Snake has also presumed control over the very forces of creation that you deemed good? What did you mean when you looked at this ferocious world with its ring of fire and volcanoes and hurricanes and tsunamis and said, ‘this is good?’”
“Do those lives mean anything to you? If this is some vast punishment, some release of wrath in an Old Testament sense, why pick on these people? It seems you might think about
Sitting in the Garden, waiting to ask my questions, doubt comes about the Voice. I think about what those who do not have the relationship I enjoy with the Gardener and what they are thinking now. All their arguments are bolstered by this event. It’s all a matter of natural processes. These people were simply innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time. God didn’t fail them, we did by making certain we here on the West Coast of the Pacific had good tsunami warnings but caring not a fig for current technology application in the Indian Ocean. God either doesn’t control it, or if he does, he clearly doesn’t care much about the impact of his actions on individuals. So this jibber jabber about dying on the cross, even for me because he loves so much is just that—jibber jabber nonsense. Or, in the beautifully simple words of Archibald McLeish, “If God is God he is not good and if God is good he is not God.”
Now that the Garden is dark and cold and empty, I find myself longing for the times when I heard that sweet voice, when the birds hushing their singing to hear it. The cynics must be right, I think. We hold onto the faith because of how it gives us strength and comfort to deal with the terribleness of life, but inside we all know it is an illusion, a delusion. We refuse to give it up in the face of evidence as high as a wall of water, but we cling to it like a victim in a tree believing it is our only hope for meaning in this life. And the cynic says if meaning is this futile, it is better to let go and give yourself up to the tide of truth keeping your integrity intact if not your hope.
Suddenly the Gardener comes. Not meekly as I expected. Not with patience to hear my questions. Not as the defendant appearing before the judge. He has a simple question for me: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footing set, or who laid its cornerstone? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from its womb? Have you ever given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its place? Have you journeyed to the springs of sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?”
On and on and on he questioned me. And the questions came down to this “What do you know really? If you are not God, why do you presume to think like God? What makes you think that I am bound to your small concept of justice?”
There are a great many conversations going on with God in this time. Hundreds of thousands of souls of infinite value cried out to him in their own ways in their own faiths in their own tongues. And many millions more are crying out in the pain and agony of their souls and minds seeking answers, seeking confirmation of their most treasured beliefs.
My single consolation is this: I have no answer and I need not have the answers. The strongest confirmation I have that the Garden has not been washed away and that the Gardener’s voice is still sweet and tender is that he answered these questions thousands of years ago. My doubts are not new, any more new than earthquakes. My questions and fears cause him no more trouble than did those of Job, his servant who remained faithful despite questioning God to his very core. My questions were asked for me by a writer who understood exactly what I feel and who was far more eloquent in probing the depths than I could ever be. And that writer, clearly touched by the Voice in the Garden, offered up the only answer that is true and still gives hope: Be still and know that I am God.
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