See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.
Moses is relaying a whole host of blessings and curses, blessings if the people follow God’s commandments, and curses if they don’t. Cursed be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. But if you just return to God and follow, the iron yolk will be removed from your neck, and the marauding locusts will disappear. Just choose right.
The accompanying reflection from Frederick Buechner focuses on things we know because we learn them, versus things we know because we just know, or they occur to us. The latter are things we cannot logically work our way through or prove, but we know them nonetheless. Buechner suggests that we can’t rationalize our way to anything about God, but somehow, there are some things we just know. That, he suggests, is a grace-granted revelation.
There’s an interesting relationship between these two notions, between blessings/curses, and learning/revelation, at least that’s my working hypothesis right now.
I understand that we have free will. That our choices to move towards God result in blessings and joy, light and love. I also know that our choices to move away from God have negative consequences, although I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say ‘curses’. But when I make choices that are against what I believe God calls me to do, and who God calls me to be, eventually I’m miserable, or at least unhappy from that choice. If I’m short with a loved one or colleague, or even think ill of someone, I don’t feel good about it, eventually. In theory, I get this.
The reality is more challenging. My sick loved one has a brain disease, no different than a cancerous disease of the cells, or a broken bone. The symptoms result in mean behavior, reckless actions, grandiose thoughts. I do not believe that a loving God would curse them, and now their behavior is attributable to an illness, so that seems patently unfair. But to look at their life and prospects moving forward, it feels like a curse. My woes are insignificant compared to theirs, but I would suggest that my future and prospects are vastly different than I’d planned. Does that mean I’m cursed? Or that I did something that drew God’s wrath? Alternatively, could I do something that would remove that burden from my loved one’s life, and relatedly, from mine? Is this as simple as making better choices? To read this section of Deuteronomy, you’d think so.
But here’s what I know, and can rationalize. That is patently not true. I know that I cannot behave or live my way to my loved one’s health. I can look at people of faith throughout the ages who’ve lived more faith-filled lives, and still had lives and loved ones that looked cursed. Because I know that is true, I also know, logically, that things that look like blessings and curses are not simply the result of a cause/effect relationship with God. This I absolutely know.
The growing revelatory awareness that I have, that I cannot prove, but I know just the same, is that while blessings and curses may be doled out by God, it’s not a causal relationship to my actions. I cannot behave my way to guaranteed blessings, or the removal of curses. Maybe I don’t understand what a blessing and a curse really looks like in my life. But I’m certain that my loved one isn’t cursed because of something they did or didn’t do. Maybe they aren’t cursed at all. Maybe that’s just my language.
God’s blessings and curses are not formulaic. They are not strictly the result of my actions. God’s grace is part of the missing formula. But what I believe is that I will never know. And that’s ok.
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