Unravelling the Book of Job

The Book of Job deals with one of the great mysteries of human life: why do good people suffer, and why does God not answer our prayers. As it presently appears in our bibles, the book presents a great contradiction about the nature of God. First we have a preamble written in prose. This is followed by a poem of great beauty and deep meaning. The book ends with a return to prose. Two very different images of God appear. But read on, and see what I mean. Jim Gerwing.

It must have been a slow day in heaven.  Maybe both God and Satan were a little bored.  So they went to the local coffee shop to chat.  After the preliminary expressions of greetings they began to play a game of one-up-man-ship.

“Hey, Satan my friend, have you seen my boy Job down there?  Look what a fine man he is.  Great wealth, a wonderful wife and kids, a new house and three vintage cars.  And he hasn’t done a bit of wrong in his whole life.”

“Granted,” says Satan.  “But maybe he is so good because you have protected him from everything that could go wrong.  What would happen to him if we took all that away?  Let’s make a wager here.  I’ll give you five to one odds that if we took it all away he wouldn’t be so smugly pious.”

“I’ll take you up on that because I trust that Job will hang on to his goodness.”

In the next few weeks, Job lost his job, his wife berated him endlessly, his kids took to drugs, his cars all broke down on the same day.  His house burned down.  Job couldn’t understand how all this could happen so fast.  But he didn’t waver in his trust that things would get better soon enough as long as he resisted the temptation to kill his wife, put his kids in jail, cheat on his taxes, or anything unjust to right his ship.

“See,” God smirked at Satan when they had coffee the next time. “My boy Job is doing all right.”

“Okay,” said Satan.  “But so far we haven’t touched him.  He is still healthy, gets enough to eat and drink, and hasn’t felt anything horrible in himself.  Let’s see if he will hang on if we strike him personally.”

“I agree, but on one condition.  We can’t go so far as to put him to death.”

“Done.”

And the next day Job fell ill.  Not just ill.  He broke out in ugly sores all over his body.  He stunk so badly that his wife drove him out of the house and he ended up on the street.  Everybody shunned him except a few people who felt sorry for him and flipped him a few coins or some scraps of food.

So begins the book of Job, an exposition on the problem of why the innocent suffer.  After this beginning, the book breaks into a long and beautifully crafted poem, bringing in three “comforters” to argue with Job in three dialogues, each one devoted to different arguments trying to convince Job to admit that he must have done something wrong to deserve such punishment.  Even his wife dares him to kill himself.  Job remains obdurate, stubbornly insisting that God is dealing with him unfairly, even daring God to take the defensive role in court to justify his ill-treatment.  A fourth person attempts to intervene, a young man who is convinced that the old guys were off base, and gives them all a lengthy lesson is wisdom, still insisting that Job must confess his sins in order to restore his fortunes. Job continues his laments, refusing to admit that he had done any wrongs to deserve what had happened to him.

Then God speaks to Job.  Far from attempting to justify whatever misfortunes Job is experiencing, God scolds Job for not understanding even the simple things in nature, so how could he attempt to grasp the meaning of human suffering. This is the part of prayer that too many are missing: listening to God speak to them.

The poem ends with the simple response from Job.  He is so very sorry for mouthing off on things he does not understand.  His final stance is to accept his position in the dust and ashes.

The present book of Job then goes back to the argument between God and Satan.  God restores Job’s fortunes to double what he had before. And therein lies the problem with this book.  The preamble and the conclusion completely destroy the whole argument of the poem.  The poem is clear.  We simply do not understand why life is like it is.  It is not fair.  Good people suffer untold misery.  Bad people often prosper.  It just doesn’t make any sense.  God does not interfere with any of it. No amount of human prayer, suffering, sacrifice, changes what happens.

The preamble creates an image of God that is disgusting. God is willing to visit horrible misfortunes on someone to win an argument with Satan.  God and Satan can pull strings to create any situation at will, for no good reason.

That image of God is what prompts people to pray for cures, for winning games, for making big bucks in the lottery, for safety, for rain, for sunshine.  That also prompts people to make sacrifices to appease God’s anger.  That is the theory behind the sacrificial death of Jesus to atone for the sins of the world.  That is why heaven had to be invented: to even the scales of justice that were unbalanced during one’s life.

The book of Job raises a number of issues that cry out for explanation.  Who wrote the book of Job?  Obviously two very different characters, one who could not agree with the poem’s thesis that what happens in life is just life happening.  The poem sees God as not interfering in any way with the natural progression of events.  The writer of the first and last sections provide a whole different argument:  that God is in charge and can change anything at will.  God is just, keeps things level.  Job is good and stays the course, so God must reward him.  The preamble and the epilogue to the poem make that case.

We can conclude that two writers were involved if we study the style of the two parts.  The preamble and the epilogue are written in rather ordinary prose.  The rest is high poetry, from a different pen, from a different attitude, from a different time and place.

Whoever it was that edited the book of Job as we have it put the two contradictory stories together, letting us struggle with the problem.  So which part is the inspired word of God?  Our task in life is to explore the boundaries of wisdom in this book, to manage our lives in the quagmire of doubt and delusion, to make sense of what is often meaningless.  And, like the Job of the poem, we may find that we have to remain in our state of ignorance, satisfied that we will never know the whole story even while we struggle with the difficulties of taking life as it is, not as we would wish it to be.  Bad things do happen to good people and to bad people, and we will never know how it will all come out in the end.  We carry on as best we can with the hand that is dealt us.  We can pray, and we ought to pray, for relief.  But we understand that prayer does not change God.  It changes us, our attitude, our way of dealing with what we cannot fully understand.

ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Sin. A fascinating subject evoking images of wicked pleasures and eternal danger. Sin holds a fascination even for non-religious people. Everyone wants to know if there is an official list of the worst sins a person can commit.

Actually, there is such a list. Some call them the capital sins, some call them the seven deadly sins. They are pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. They get a lot of bad press in religious circles.

The more I learn about them, the more I think they aren’t sins at all, not in themselves.

Considered as vital life forces within each human being, they are necessary for healthy living. In ancient Greek mythology, these and other forces were given the names of gods and goddesses.   Those who ignored them did so at their peril.

Just think of people with absolutely no PRIDE at all. They have no self-esteem. They think of themselves as worthless. Easily dominated by others, they become doormats, accepting victimhood as their due.

What of those whose pride is excessive or out of control? They look down on others with disdain. They might be racists or bigots. They never stoop to forgive anyone who gets in their way. They are individualists in the worst sense of that word. They are not just me-first, but me-only persons. Like Zeus, or Hera.

What happens when pride is safely under control?   These are persons of true humility, with a sense of self-respect that enables them to acknowledge and celebrate and share their gifts. They take good care of themselves, their belongings, their earth, because they know their worth. In turn, they find it in their hearts to treat others with the same pride they hold for themselves.

People without a drop of COVETOUSNESS have no energy to care for things, or to protect and cherish their belongings. They abandon their possessions as soon as it becomes even a little difficult to tend to them.

Covetousness out of control leads people to want everything they see. They go to sales and grab everything in sight. They gamble compulsively, greedily expecting to win big, feeling like losers when they don’t. They pine after every latest fad in fashion and gadgetry. They are the ultimate consumers.

Under control of temperance, covetousness produces careful stewards who use resources wisely to purchase according to needs, rather than according to wants. They know the worth of things and cherish everything around them.

People without the life force of LUST become insensitive, indifferent, immature, unable to enter meaningful relationships with anyone. They are people with no fire inside. Suppressed lust destroys the life spirit. The ancient Greeks would have seen this as a failure to worship Eros, and they would pay for it sooner or later.

Out of control, lust leads to using the attraction of sex to abuse others, maybe even children. Ungoverned lust leads to rape and brutality, to using sex merely for fun until it becomes meaningless and frustrating, driving people through a series of unsatisfying and unfulfilling matings which leave them even more lonely than before. The ancient Greeks would say these people worship Eros but forget all the other deities.

Under the control of moderation, the energy in lust empowers a person to enter the lives of others in mutual and tender and passionate love for life.

Without ANGER people are listless, lukewarm, uncaring and indifferent to the cause of justice. They just don’t care.   Anger suppressed or kept inside will eat the heart away.

Vicious hatred and murder grow out of ungoverned anger. Such anger makes the batter rush the pitcher after a brush-back pitch, and the hockey player lose his temper and slash out with his stick at his opponent’s head. Anger causes war, gang violence, and untempered vengeance.

Righteous anger, tempered by justice, leads to work for what is right with strength and a daring determination not to give up in the face of opposition. The ancient Greeks would point out that such people worship Ares the right way. Christians, on the other hand, canonize the daring zealot who rights great wrongs.

Without the life force of GLUTTONY people become anorexic, ill for lack of appetite. They see food and drink as their enemies.

Out of reasonable control, gluttony results in abuse of food, drink, or drugs, and all the concomitant evils. The ancient Greeks would see this as an exorbitant attention to Bacchus to the detriment of service to all the other gods.

Under control, the force of gluttony allows people to enjoy food and drink, to laugh and dance and sing with freedom and happiness of heart. They do not worry over every ounce of fat they might be putting on.

Without the energy that ENVY can furnish, people are not inspired to rise beyond their own limitations. Lacking such initiative, they are bored with life, become cynical, downhearted, and spread unhappiness.

The life force of envy out of control leads to robbery of materials, reputation, and spiritual gifts. Envy beyond bounds drives people to do anything to get even with or ahead of everyone else.

Under proper control, envy builds self-esteem, and the ability to see a good example and perhaps even to emulate it.

People with absolutely no SLOTH in their personal makeup become workaholics, people with such demented force that they become unrelenting and intolerant bosses over themselves and others.

Out of control, sloth leads to the inertia characterized by couch potatoes, physically, mentally and spiritually too lazy to get out their recliners. Or they might be welfare bums, abusing the system because they refuse to use the energy it takes to work for a living.

The life force of sloth under control lets a person wisely put off to tomorrow what should be put off — and to sleep, trusting that God cares for the world. Properly regulated sloth lets people play and rest and read, and smell some flowers along the way.

The ancient Greeks would point out that those who fail to attend to all the gods and goddesses would never be happy. To serve only one god at the expense of others is the height of stupidity.

Seen in this light, these seven forces are not at all sinful in themselves. When they are totally absent or out of control, or when they are suppressed, denied, or renounced, they can be terribly dangerous. Regulated by temperance, prudence, courage, and justice, they can and do lead to wholesome, balanced, wholistic, healthy, and holy lives.

As nature intended.

Feedback on church stuff in my blog

I have received some feedback from readers about my views on the Catholic Church regarding the abuses within the institution. I have thought very carefully about their arguments, which focus on the great good priests and religious have done in the world through the ages. I think, for example, of the services rendered in the fields of education, health, philosophy, science, and social welfare.

However, let me offer this scenario: In your community is a very, very wealthy man. He has contributed millions of dollars in charitable donations to worthy causes. But he is also accused of raping and sodomizing numerous children, some of whom you know personally, and some of whom are his own nephews and nieces. He has faced criminal charges for this.

He has the money to hire the best lawyers, who use every legal argument in his defence, who intimidate the victims and their families who find it virtually impossible to raise enough money to cover their legal costs. When all avenues of defence seem hopeless and a court case is impending, the wealthy man offers a generous financial compensation in return for the victims dropping their charges and committing to keep silent forever about the case.

My question is this: would you still respect this man? Do his good works compensate for his crimes? Such is the situation regarding clerical pedophilia in the church. The institution has used exactly the same strategy as the wealthy man to protect its clergy and has made precious little effort to eradicate the abuse.

Now, I do know that this is an analogy, a comparison, and like all analogies and comparisons it has limited validity. I also admit that the problem is enormous. There is no simple fix. I just find it so reprehensible that an institution which proclaims itself as “holy” and the only true church of Jesus Christ can ask for continued allegiance from its members while its leaders commit gross criminal acts like pedophilia (called soul murder by psychiatrists). I cannot condone silence on this matter. Nor can I ignore doing nothing because the problem is so huge that individuals appear helpless. Covering ears or closing eyes is not an option. I have written and said over and over that the folks in the pews are every bit as guilty as the clerical establishment because they are silent and continue to support the institution financially or in other ways. Face it, all the billions of dollars paid out in compensation to victims comes from the pockets of people in the pews.

It is for that reason that I continue to rail against the darkness in our church. I am truly sorry, but I simply cannot remain silent or indifferent. I dare to use the words of Martin Luther, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

Of God and the Sinner

The question is: does sin destroy our relationship with God?

That is what we were taught.

I want to examine another way of looking at this. I go to the first book of the Bible, Genesis, to the story of Cain and Abel. Who or what is this God who speaks inside Cain?

In the background of this story are these two brothers, Cain and Abel, who were living close to each other, but they had different ways of making a living. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. And that created competition and conflict. That is the age-old formula for misunderstanding, even violence: the cowboy rancher and the nomad Indian, the rancher who wants an open range and the farmer who wants to fence the land, the oilman and the environmentalist.

Both Cain and Abel made plans to thank God for their success. Their tradition was to select the best things they had, build an altar, and burn the gifts. The smell of the smoke wafting upward would be a sign that God was pleased with their gifts.

Smoke from Abel’s altar, fuelled by the fat of a yearling lamb, went straight up into the sky. Cain’s offering of vegetation was not so fortunate. The smoke stayed on the ground, burned Cain’s eyes and choked him.

Cain was more than disappointed. He was angry. His best was just not good enough. He resented Abel. Resentment turned to anger, then into bloody thoughts. God spoke inside Cain. “Cain, what is the problem? That smoke has nothing at all to do with how pleased I am with your offering. Don’t let it eat at you. Your thoughts against your brother are not right. Get over it.”

But Cain could not get rid of the wicked thoughts, and when opportunity offered, he killed his brother, thinking that getting rid of the sight of him would make him feel better. Not so. God did not let Cain off the hook.

“Hey, Cain, where is your brother?”

“How should I know? I am not his nurse.”

“Come on, Cain. Own up to it. I know perfectly well what you have done. Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the place in the field where you buried him.”

What does this tell us? Did God write Cain off the good book? Did God abandon Cain? Not at all. God still considered Cain worth loving. God is still there, talking to him. In fact, nowhere in the story is there any reference to God speaking inside Abel!

The story illustrates that sin, even a wicked thing like cold-blooded murder, does not break our relationship with God. God still loves and cares for the sinner. But it does change things. Cain has to face his sin, admit his wrongdoing, and he can no longer stay in his place of comfort. He has to change, to move.

The story goes on to say that Cain was the ancestor of many generations. The story does not tell us how many of his progeny learned Cain’s lesson, and how many did not.

So what can we take away from this way of reading the Cain and Abel account? First of all, it is a story, not necessarily a factual account of any incident that really happened. The story is universal in its truth, in its teaching about our relationship with God, however we think of God, whether as a personal being somewhere outside us, or whether God is anything like a superhuman being who rewards us for our good deeds and punishes us when we falter.

Whatever. The idea behind the story is that God loves us come what may, do what we might, is always present. The difficult thing is to recognize the voice of God from an unexpected direction. God speaks to us in many ways, most clearly and personally right inside each one of us. Some might want to call it conscience, but it is bigger than that. Conscience can be formed and trained and misguided through education. The voice of God inside is much, much deeper.

Cain heard it and acted against what he clearly heard. The voice of God did not disappear. We can choose to ignore the voice. We can try to silence it by cluttering our minds with other thoughts. But it can never be completely silenced.

What signs do we use to tell us that we are good people? Money? Like “God gave me my money.” Whether we have money or some other external sign of success has nothing to do with our relationship with God. It is how we feel deeply inside about our personal worth before God. There, and only there, is personal salvation.

Reforming the Institution

Institutions grow out of a common goal or belief shared by enough people to establish a recognizable group. Before long they write or agree on a constitution, or a document, or a story to which they pledge allegiance, normally celebrated through a ritual that is re-enacted on a regular basis. As time goes on, the bonds become firmer when the group grows and attains its goals. More stories arise, some of which conform to reality, some are pure fantasy. The group eventually establishes the rules of orthodoxy.

Once it reaches that stage the institution takes on its own character or personality. It exists in its own right. At that juncture its preservation can supersede even the original intent of those who started it. In no time, the institution is taken over by people who use it to further their own personal ends, and the institution then attracts ambitious, acquisitive, greedy, powerful individuals. Fear of the loss of power becomes a dominant theme. They surround themselves with sycophantic bureaucrats who do what they are told without question. These individuals soon find a way to feed the top people the information that serves their own interests.

Within a short time these individuals exploit even their own adherents. They marginalize all outsiders and spread fear of rejection and excommunication within the institution. The leaders and the institutional bureaucracy become oppressive, arrogant, and intolerant.

The bigger the institution grows, the more powerful it becomes, the more sacred its claim, the harder it is to reform it. Sooner or later corruption becomes so widespread that it produces a groundswell of discontent. Opposition begins to appear, organizes its forces, and a revolution occurs. The institutions that survive are the ones which go back to their original objectives, discard the most obvious accretions and change just enough to satisfy the discontented.

Historically nothing is so conservative as a sudden successful revolution, particularly if led by firebrands who are not afraid to use violence to achieve the quick dissolution of what they identify as an unjust tyranny. The French put it this way: the more things change, the more they stay the same. The only real change is the names of those in power.

When religion is institutionalized it can become vicious, intolerant, abusive, unjust, oppressive. It attracts to its leadership a large number of people who use it to further their own personal ambitions, their own proclivities, both honourable and dishonourable. It creates a system that makes internal dissent into treachery, heresy, unfaithfulness. It enslaves the common person who is in need of comfort, who needs reassurance against irrational fears, who looks to leaders for guidance in thought and morality. Under the guise of enlightenment the institution blinds its leaders and followers alike.

When I apply this theory of institutional development to the Roman Catholic Church I come to the great reforming attempt of Vatican II convened by John XXIII in the 1960’s.   The council came as no surprise to those who had for almost a century been advocating an about-face from the ultra-conservative stands of the nineteenth century. The bishops assembled in Rome agreed almost to a man that changes were needed.

At the heart of the reform was a profound change in the liturgy, at the centre of which was a shift to vernacular languages and later a complete overhaul of the lectionary. Sunday mass is for Catholics the most intimate connection to their faith. When they see changes there, changes which they do not understand, they become unsettled. The most serious failure of the reform was the ignorance of ill-prepared parish priests. Silly, idiosyncratic innovations flourished. Sloppy habits replaced stately rituals. The majority of priests failed to appreciate the value and meaning of the messages in the readings in their homilies. Inappropriate music replaced the traditional Gregorian chants. Although many welcomed the changes, many other Catholics no longer recognized the church of their youth. Countless members drifted away.

The Vatican lost no time in reasserting the old ways. Paul VI’s vacillating pusillanimity gave way to ultra conservatives John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who filled all the vacancies in the episcopate with conservatives and came down hard on any liberal expressions. Beginning in the late 1960’s well over 100,000 priests all over the world, many of them the brightest and best, left their posts. No one knows how many nuns left their convents. The dreams of Vatican II evaporated.

What happened? Vatican II, despite some remarkable changes, was just another brief and futile attempt to reform the Catholic Church from the top. That never works. Particularly in an institution as huge and diverse as the Catholic Church, it is impossible to organize the laity and parish priests to understand and demand reform.

Unlike most other institutions and empires, the Catholic Church has an incredible ability to rid itself of the worst of the accretions and change just enough to satisfy those who have stayed in. Reform attempts have often enough strengthened the hold of Roman authority.

I have come to believe that it all boils down to one word: woman. The Roman church has survived because it has kept its women praying and paying. Face it, most men would not go to church on Sunday or put a dime in the collection plate if their wives quit going and paying. Every attempt on the part of women to gain entry into the power structure of the Catholic Church has failed quickly and miserably.

And so the exclusively male clerical hierarchy, claiming infallibility, can continue to pray, “O God, grant that we may always be right for thou knowest that we will never change our minds.”

JESUS BLASTS LEADERS

Jesus spent an enormous amount of energy trying to teach his disciples not to allow any form of authoritarianism into their circle. He harshly rebuked those who attempted to lord it over the others. He never tired of correcting them when they argued about which of them came first. In fact, when he did chose a leader, if he did that at all, he picked Peter, an impetuous man who invariably got things wrong and then had to admit it and seek another path, a man who was not too proud to change when he was wrong.

Jesus shocked the religious leaders of his day when he said that prostitutes and cheaters would find their way into God’s reign sooner than they. They deeply resented his charge that they were blind leaders of the blind.

Not all the Scribes and Pharisees deserved the condemnations Jesus directed at them. But too many of them did. And they are the ones who saw to it that Jesus was silenced.

I have come to believe that the Gospel accounts are not simply historical records of what Jesus did and said, but that the early Christian community kept reflecting on their own lives and remembered the lessons Jesus taught. When they saw their own leaders using their powers of leadership in lording it over others, they recalled what Jesus said about religious leaders who abuse authority.

Faced with reports of the abuse of power by our own leaders and by those in positions of power taking advantage of others, we need to revisit the tirades of Jesus once again, and reflect on their possible meaning today.

The following paraphrase of Matthew’s Chapter 23 is directly applicable to religious authorities, but parents, CEO’s, principals, teachers, judges, coaches, anyone in leadership, can also ponder these words, uncomfortable as they might be.

Those who would see Jesus only as the gentle healer need to consider the blazing rage that he also displayed.

Shame on you clerics and canonists for the way you succeed in hiding behind your precious policies and legalities to do grave injustice to the powerless.

Shame, shame on you for dressing yourselves in distinctive garb and expecting the adulation of your “faithful,” while inside, your hearts reek of fraud and abuse of power, and the real tragedy is that you are totally unaware that you have a problem.

Shame and double shame on you for expecting the best seats at table, at the theater, wherever you go.

Shame on you for trying to cover your greed for power with long prayers read out of books and not from the heart. You’ve got all the reward you are going to get. Don’t expect God to be pleased with your outward show of piety.

Let unbelievers lord it over each other with their superior wealth and power. But you should never have allowed this to happen among you. You want to be great? Then serve. Just as I served and serve you still.

Often enough you give good advice, and then fail to follow it yourselves. You preach equality and refuse it to the weak. You preach love and concern for others, and show not the slightest trace of it in your own dealings. You tell the world it must act justly, but then you refuse a living and just wage to those you employ, especially women. You take advantage of their goodness and generosity and shamelessly rob their children.

You do everything you can to look good in public, with your fine garb, your big homes, your classy cars, your elaborate parties. You love to accept special titles, like Your Eminence, and Your Excellency and Your Grace and Your Lordship and Your Holiness. You should not be using the title “Father” if that in any way gives the wrong impression to simple people.

You should not even accept the title of leader. You need to live a more radical equality of sisterhood and brotherhood with no distinctive honors at all, except the honor to serve each other.

Shame on you for your lack of sincerity, double shame. You are hypocrites and play-actors. Your laws slam the doors of heaven (to which you do NOT have the key) in the faces of people who are trying the best they can. I’m telling you, you make me sick.

You are frauds. You can pick out all the little flaws of everyone else, and swallow the grossest injustice and haven’t a thought about mercy and good faith.

You can look so good on the outside, while inside you harbor untold greed and self-indulgence. You pay enormous sums to cover your misdeeds, money you filched from the poor who can least afford it.

You remind me of beautifully kept cemeteries with their fine white stones and beautifully manicured lawns that cover decay and rotting flesh.

Shame on you for your fearfulness. You are so afraid of anything new, anything different, anything you have not seen before that you cannot bring yourselves to trust anyone but yourselves. Shame on you for not trusting that the Spirit breathes where she will.

What miserable frauds you are! Shame on you for building great cathedrals, monuments to yourselves, while people starve. You hide this behind a perverse justification that nothing is too good for God. God takes no joy in great churches as long as there is a single beggar on the street, as long as there is even one homeless child wandering hungry and alienated in an alley.

And when God sends you those who try to straighten you out, you condemn them, you excommunicate them, you call them faithless rebels, you shame them as disloyal dissenters. You heap abuse on them.

You are guilty of the vilest form of injustice, a form that hides behind righteousness and law.

I can say, you do carry on a long tradition you inherited from your ancestors, and that is also to your eternal shame. You’ve had too much practice, too many bad examples from those who have gone before you. You haven’t the courage, the heart, the faith to break away.

And yet I call on you to do so before it is too late.

I would love to gather all of you together with all the people of God into one wonderful family. But you have had and will have none of it. You think you know better. All the worse for you.

You seem unable to recognize the call to the family of God. I feel sorry for you.

You have amassed far too much wealth, far too much power, far too much control. You will not willingly let it go.

But the day is coming when you will lose it all, every monument you have raised will come crashing down to earth. You will not be able to understand why it all happened so quickly because you are too blind to see, too deaf to hear, too hard-hearted to search with loving care for the truth.

Your blindness is the more culpable because you are so sure that you alone can see and everyone else is blind.

Jim Gerwing is a freelance writer and lecturer whose life experience and education have given him a unique view of the world. He searches for meaningful modern spirituality in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as in the traditions of the early Christian community.