Telling It Like It Ain’t – Part 2

There’s never any shortage of people ever so eloquently “talking the talk,” in every arena of life, but when put to the task, the silence on the paths is deafening for absence of anyone actually “walking the walk.”

Satan kills off all of Job’s children, bankrupts him of his wealth, tarnishes his reputation and ruins his health, at the beginning of the Book of Job, all under the watchful and consenting eye of God, in order to test Job’s degree of faith. Job’s health and wealth are then restored to even greater levels than before and he is given a whole new family of children to raise, at the conclusion of the book, as though all of that is supposed to neatly balance out his losses. Many scholars who have studied the Book of Job divide it into two distinctly different stories, most likely attributable to two distinctly different authors, a poem in the middle book-ended on each side by a fable. The aforementioned story about the challenge introduced by Satan, and the happy, better-than-ever conclusion comprise the fable, which was most likely added to the poem after the fact. Sadly, this same line of thinking has fed an apparent need humans have blindly wanted to believe in for centuries since.

One of the more prominent New Age thought leaders recently shared a post where he posited the following: “there is no such thing as change for the worse… when change visits your life, you can be sure things are turning for the better.” Some might be inclined to say that the dawn always follows the night. But, for approximately 6 million Jewish people during the time of the Holocaust, thousands of Native Americans during the settling of America and thousands upon thousands more Africans during the time of slavery, following their reduction to humiliation and insignificance (or, to dust and ashes, as stated by Job), the only Dawn that likely ever came for them was death. For me, this has become the litmus test by which I evaluate any and all commentaries on the meaning of life. As such, there can be no way to look at all of these aforementioned “changes,” where countless lives were lost and dreams were shattered, and then come to the conclusion that these turns were for the better. For who?!?

We can always hope for a better tomorrow than today, through faith. Things can always improve from their current state of being and we can choose to use the circumstances of today to make us better people: kinder, more loving, compassionate and resilient. But, applying my litmus test to this particular thought leader’s post, there absolutely is such a thing as change for the worse. Stating otherwise denies the reality of the suffering and the magnitude of the losses experienced by others.

Closing our eyes to the suffering all around us does not make it any less so; it contributes to it!

by jon m ketcham

Offering hope to the hopeless & helping the broken re-kindle their dreams