The More Things Change

Have you ever sat at your dining room table and looked at the things on it and wondered... wondered what the archaeologists are going to dig up in 500 years?

I may, admittedly, spend too much time in museums or at King's Landing – but I am forever thinking about what people will think in the future. Why Tupperware, for example. I can picture it now, “they made this throwaway material and then stored food in it” “What, there are so many better ways to store food.” “I know, right!”

Imagine the fun someone is going to have figuring out just what the hell a Keurig is.

It also may be a product of being a little older when I ended up with young children. I get asked on a daily basis questions such as did they have cars when you were little. People tell me I should answer honestly, but I find it more fun to describe in great detail the horse and buggy I supposedly owned and how when I was little the world was black and white because they had not invented colour yet.

But you can see it right? Whether you are 15 or a hundred you can see how much things have changed, can you not? In university I typed my assignments on a typewriter. I first learned to dial on a rotary telephone. I did not even hear of the internet until I was in the workforce. I can name a hundred things I had, or did, or ate that people no longer do. And my kids cannot even picture some of what I am talking about without an example.

The above five paragraphs are a metaphor – an example – that I want you to keep in your mind because it is very visual and very true. We can all imagine how much the world has changed in terms of what is physically in the world.

Now, take one step to the left and ask yourself, is that not true for how we think and feel as well?

When I was growing up I knew for certain that I would get a job. Hell, I could get any job I wanted. When I grew up it was expected that you were going to fall and break your arm. No one was going to stop you from getting on that damn spinning death trap on the playground. When I grew up I never met anyone that was not Caucasian. I may have never met anyone who did not have Scottish blood in their veins somewhere. Whenever an adult talked I listened and did whatever they said. I was out from dawn to dusk without my parents even asking where I was.

But there was more to it. Men and Women did different jobs. Your type of job was determined by what class you belonged to. Everything from swearing to j-walking was so taboo that you felt as if you were a gangster when you did it. Only men and women fell in love with each other. You had kids. You belonged to the boy scouts, the PTA, the Rotary club, the masons or a bowling league. There were not a whole lot of surprises waiting on the horizon – or at least, that is what you were led to believe.

We knew what we owned and we knew who we were. Believe it or not, it was more black and white. Now... take one more step off of that track to the left and let's think about God.

Within the last forty years, within the last 10 years, within the last 2 years, a lot has changed.

Why is it we are so sure that whatever it is the church and God were about 2000 years ago has not changed? Why do we think that the faith that was good enough for my grandfather is good enough for me? The television he had is certainly not good enough for me. His attitudes towards women and sexuality are certainly not good enough for me. Why is his faith good enough for me?

Everything evolves. Our understanding of the universe and of society. I just think we should be more willing and open when it comes to how the church and faith and our relationship to God evolves. What would happen if we just let go?

WHY IS IT RAINING

As I write this I am finishing all of my work for the week. It is Weds morning. My kids are with their grandparents for the rest of the week. My significant other is off work. What a glorious time it would be at Kouchibouguac frolicking in the waves and reading on the sand...

But it is raining. People say it will rain all week. These people have no souls.

Do you, like me, ever find life not working out how you planned? Ever wonder if the universe has it in for you? Have you ever wanted to go to the beach without your kids for once and had it rain all week? Sure you have. Were you ever disappointed by it? Sure you were. Ever wonder about the ontological significance to whether predestination or omniscience is to blame for the rain fall? Sure you have... you just didn't realize it.

Why is it that we spend so much time worrying about why things happen, especially the things that are so out of our control that we cannot possible affect them? That big sentence up there, it means, did God do this or was it supposed to happen this way for a reason, and we all say that from time to time. We all ask, Why? But seriously, how am I going to answer the question as to why it is raining this week, and why do I bother struggling with it?

So, for just a second, allow me to play the part of the universe, of God, of the one on the other end of this questioning and ask you a question. Is the beach the only thing worth doing? Why for once don't you just roll with the punches?

How is this for a twist on the book of Job or on Jesus famous speech about considering the flowers of the field – those passages intended to get across that old chestnut of wisdom, you have to roll with the punches.

You might recognize here that some of us have bigger problems than rain on a beach day. Some of us have very real problems like lightning striking the house and burning it to the ground, or an inoperable tumour, or the sudden downturn of the economic picture making your job redundant. In those cases we usually ask the same question – why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? Why would God allow this? I think you understand where I am going.

If I could only impart one bit of wisdom on my children, this is it... Roll with the punches. If you want to be even cuter about it, then if life hands you lemons go ahead and make lemonade. If I wanted to be more philosophical about it I would offer this:

There is no pattern to the universe except the natural unfolding of events. Nowhere in the Bible, Qua-ran, Wisdom of Buddha or anywhere else does it suggest that the book of life is written from the beginning and ever unchanging. We made that up. Sure, there are short term plans in those books, God decides the save the Israelites from Egypt and raises up Moses to be a leader, so the story goes. But that is a 40 year sequence, not the point of the universe.

What matters is that random things happen and faith, courage, and sheer force of will are required to roll with the punches. Not only that, but we should stop making so many plans. Wake up in the morning, see what happens, and do what feels right. If we lived that way then the rain would not matter nearly as much.

It is not raining today for any divine reason. It is because of air currents, the moons pull on the oceans, the circulation of water vapour around the world; and that system does not care one whit whether I want to go to the beach or not. Of course, it is good for the flowers.

- Brett Anningson is the Protestant Chaplain at the University of New Brunswick, a freelance writer and blogger, editor of Arabella: Canadian Art and Architecture and is passionate about finding ways to understand faith in modern culture.