DAILY WITH JOB

Introduction

First Talk

Second Talk

Third Talk

Fourth Talk

Fifth Talk

Sixth Talk

Seventh Talk

Eighth Talk

Ninth Talk

Tenth Talk

Eleventh Talk

Twelfth Talk

Thirteenth Talk

Fourteenth Talk

Fifteenth Talk

Sixteenth Talk

Seventeenth Talk

Eighteenth Talk

Nineteenth Talk

Twentieth Talk

Twenty-first Talk

Twenty-second Talk

Twenty-third Talk

Twenty-fourth Talk

Twenty-fifth Talk

Twenty-sixth Talk

Twenty-seventh Talk

Twenty-eighth Talk

Twenty-ninth Talk

Thirtieth Talk

Thirty-first Talk

Thirty-second Talk

Thirty-third Talk

Thirty-fourthTalk

Thirty-fifth Talk

Thirty-sixth Talk

Thirty-seventh Talk

Thirty-eighth Talk

Thirty-ninth Talk

Fortieth Talk

Forty-first Talk

Forty-second Talk

Forty-third Talk

Forty-fourth Talk

Forty-fifth Talk

Forty-sixth Talk

Forty-seventh Talk

Forty-eighth Talk

Forth-ninth Talk

Fiftieth Talk

Fifty-first Talk

Fifty-second Talk

Fifty-third Talk

Fifty-fourth Talk

Fifty-fifth Talk

Fifty-sixth Talk

Fifty-seventh Talk

Fifty-eighth Talk

Fifty-ninth Talk

Sixtieth Talk

Sixty-first Talk

Sixty-second Talk

Sixty-third Talk

Sixty-fourth Talk

Sixty-fifth Talk

Talking With Job I

Bill Long 2/7/05

As I become more and more familiar with the Book of Job, I tend to refract life's experiences through the explosive language of that text. In so doing I am reminded of a story a colleague told me about 20 years ago. He had just written what would turn out to be a widely-reviewed and respected biography of the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. A good biographer "lives" with his subject for at least a decade. So much had Niebuhr become a part of his consciousness that when he was once pulled over by the police for speeding his first reaction, he told me, was "I wonder what Niebuhr would have done in a situation like this?"

Whenever I read the paper now, whenever I feel a feeling, whenever I try to put an interpretive gloss on a situation in life, I find myself retreating to the language of Job. In addition, as I read Job I tend to take his thoughts and project them as a sort of hermeneutical grid on the experiences of living. Thus, it is Job for me, coming and going. Today I was thinking about Job 19:13-20, a most heart-rending passage detailing the way that Job's loss has led to the distancing of himself from people. Twelve Hebrew words are used in these few verses to stress the people from whom Job has become alienated. Basically, he is now estranged from the entire world, as he sees it. His distress is like a narrow and constricting tunnel into which he has entered, and he cannot see his way clear of it. The following conversational reflection tries to capture some of my words to Job in this situation and his possible thinking.

Rejection

"Oh, Job, you want the friends to have mercy on you (19:21), but why don't you have mercy on us? Your language is so utterly, so uncompromsingly bleak. You know without a doubt that life is over, that the experience of pleasure and honor and fulness which you had for so long is irretrievably gone. Life is over for you as much as it was over for Othello after he had murdered his wife in a fit of jealousy.

I have so many questions to ask you, Job, before I even describe your feelings. Why couldn't you have said, like a mature professional athlete at the end of his career, 'It was a good career, but now it is over?' Ok, maybe that isn't the best analogy. Why couldn't you have been as "upbeat" as Christopher Reeve appeared to be (but was that all part of an act, too?) after his debilitating injury? Why couldn't you be grateful for the life that you had, and feed off the pleasant past memories like a wise investor can profit from wise investment decisions years after they have been made?

The past is a tricky thing, I know. It can stab you and enfeeble you. It can be a prison. But, can't it be a prism, too, that is a place of reflection of beautiful colors? Why is it, Job, that you are so utterly, doggedly committed to using your present experience of life as the interpretive template to use in summarizing the meaning of life? Don't those who have experienced a terrible divorce have the ability to say that at least some of their marriage was good, even blessed? Maybe the experience of dramatic loss is just too fresh for you, Job, and we can forgive you your intensity and sense of irreversible finality.

But that patronizes you, doesn't it, Job? I may say, "Well, Job, this intensity of feeling is only yours because you are freshly in the midst of your debilitating experience. Get some distance from it. Things will get better." If I talk like this, aren't I becoming like one of your friends, perhaps like Eliphaz in his first speech, where he just urged patience on you? Surely time gives us a different perspective on things, but will it change how we see the event fundamentally? Once you have been singed by the fire of the divine judgment, can you ever believe again?

So, I would like to come over to your side, Job, to see life as you see it, because I so believe that you have captured the inner springs of our emotions when loss comes our way. But if I come into your mental world, it is almost as if my own is obliterated rather than enriched. It just doesn't work for me to say, "Ok, Job, that is your experience; let me tell you about mine." I can't help getting the feeling that as you talk you speak with such authority, such claim to truth, that my truth is as pale and wan and weak as you must have felt your body was as you spoke your truth.

I need another mini-essay to talk about how you, Job, reacted to your loss.