I have a Master of Divinity. One thing can disintegrate my theology in under ninety minutes.
The fool says in his heart, “there is no God.” The woman with the preposterously-named degree says, “there is no love for me.”
I have drunk the wine of wrath. I have been tormented with fire in the presence of the holy angels. Darkness is my only companion.
The electricity has been out for forty-two minutes.
Clearly I have kindled God’s rage.
There are three things the Lord hates, four that are detestable to him: overconsumption of Cherry Zero, financial prioritizing of cat socks over Ugandan orphans, a cold shoulder to a lonely neighbor, and nonchalant avoidance of church activities.
The Almighty is livid. How else to explain his all-out assault on my Wi-Fi and refrigerator, the microwave and even innocent Alexa? All his breakers have crashed over me. If this goes on another half hour, I will be unable to prepare a Boca burger for dinner. Dies irae.
Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Because God wants me cold and hungry. My Father is on the warpath. I am helpless in the papoose of my selfishness.
My selfishness! That’s why I am suffering so bitterly tonight. God unmasks me, God glowers upon me, God commands me into the arena to account for myself. I have done what I should not have done. I have left undone the things I should have done.
I have bought myself $5.79 pints of low-carb ice cream. I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I have read about Reinhold Niebuhr’s ontology instead of praying.
If this goes on another forty minutes, the low-carb ice cream will languish. Cursed be the day I was born.
This does not happen when the big hurts come. When death stalks my tent, when size-ten sorrows slash my family, I lean instinctively into mercy. Night terrors hurtle me to the heart of His heart. I make my nest in the hurricane’s all-seeing Eye. In real crisis, I am calm, even lauded as the “non-anxious presence” who soothes others.
Not so when the electricity goes out.
The temperature plummets from 73 to 69. I devolve into Gollum with bangs, informing the cats, “He hateses us. Poor Angie. God hateses us. He wants us to be hungry. He wants us to be cold. Poor Angie.”
I rewind my week, reaching for the wrongdoing to justify this anguish. I did give full vent to my anxiety on Tuesday. I did buy myself a frivolous barrette on Thursday. I did judge my assistant, verily thinking the phrase “slothy little troll,” on Friday.
I have a Master of Divinity. I have a ninety-credit degree with an indecent name.
Ninety minutes into an electrical inconvenience, I am a brat in the Master’s playpen.
If I learned anything in those ninety credits, it’s that the Father loves His brats. At our worst, we don’t surprise Him.
Sloshing and rampaging through the lowest floors of our brains, we are His slimy creatures. He is petting us softly, especially when we can’t feel it.
The electricity comes back, and I am abashed. I burst into “What A Friend We Have In Jesus.” I call my Mom as though I have just won a Pulitzer. I am gentle with my halfwit self, remembering old traumas that jangle these wires.
Mostly I remember what panic forgets, that Jesus spoke often and clearly to this issue: outages and outrages are no indication of God’s love. He sends His electricity on the just and the unjust. We are all the just and the unjust.
In a stormy world, light is fragile. On the long eve of all things new, we get cold and childish. When ninety minutes trigger primal howls and send us writhing for the womb, nine thousand credits are too few to master divinity.
Mastery is not mine to claim.
Electricity has nothing to do with power.
God is Love, and brats are safe, and inconvenience is an invitation to ask forgiveness and find that it’s fresh-baked, hot-crossed, dotted with icing hearts.
Maybe next time the lights flicker, or my blood sugar spikes, or the cat decapitates another desk gnome, I won’t think God is angry.
I probably will.
But the Divine Mystery has me.