Earthquake

I am half-Japanese. My mother is Japanese, and I have lived in Japan twice, as a child and as an adult. I'm relieved to know that my family and friends have all been accounted for, and they are all safe. The city where my family lives is actually far from the epicenter, so they were insulated from the direct effects.

This morning, I was woken by a 7am call from my mom, who lives in the U.S. just a few hours away from me. "Since you study psychology, I just thought I would call you and tell you that I am SO MAD. I AM SO MAD." My mother is emotionally reserved, with a tendency to get defensive if you ask her "What's wrong?" when she's acting weird. So I could already tell that this phone call was important and unusual.

My mother converted to Southern Baptism ten years ago. I wasn't too keen on the change, and it was a particularly WTF development for a little old Japanese lady who had never expressed any desire to be spiritual, but I took it in stride because I knew that she had been struggling with a divorce. Since then, she's gotten more and more vocal about her faith, and our interactions on the topic have ranged from intelligent, loving mother-daughter discussion to her rambling on about God's gifts while I roll my eyes.

But today, when she called me, she slowly, laboriously worked herself around to the admission that she is experiencing doubt, that her faith has been shaken. She has studied Bible teachings that state that calamities occur to punish non-believers. I think that thought has been haunting her as she watches the news coverage of horrific tragedy in Japan. She is struggling to accept a God that would punish thousands of "non-believers" who have never been exposed to Christianity and would have no reason to convert from their typical Shinto/Buddhist/animistic ways. (Let us also point out that Japan is hardly Gomorrah.) She is angry at this God, who would be so arrogant and cruel. And that anger disappoints, scares, and confuses her. She described being compelled to reject this version of faith, while simultaneously being ashamed that her faith is so easily shaken.

In my opinion, it seems like tragedies, especially large-scale ones like this, bring out the worst in religious. Victims either hear that they are being punished for being bad, or being challenged to grow for being good ("God never gives you more than you can handle"), or that somehow or another there is a valuable benefit or lesson ("God has a plan;" "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger"). Even in the most benign sense of spiritual companionship and comfort, I think I would have a psychic conflict with seeking solace from the same God who took my loved ones or otherwise exerted massive suffering. And the hackneyed stories about "butterfly effects" from bad events, such as "If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have met/done/seen/learned such-and-such..." are worthless to me. Because if it hadn't happened, you would have met/done/seen/learned something else, which might have been just as good or even better, minus the awful tragedy.

All this to say, trying to make sense of events like this just seems dangerous and misguided. In 2004, I was living in Japan, and I planned a Christmas vacation to the Philippines after rejecting Thailand because it was more expensive. When the Indian tsunami happened, my mother said, "I'm so glad you're safe, I guess all my praying for you has worked!" I challenged her, asking if thousands of others had perished because their loved ones hadn't prayed for them enough. She acknowledged my point. Today, with the events in Japan, I'm reminded of that 2004 conversation and all its flawed logic. I know that my mom has benefited greatly from her faith in terms of friendship, community, serenity, and intellectual stimulation. I just hope she finds a new faith or a new God, because as of today, she has outgrown this one.




[Here is an article a friend posted that I really like. It is about doubt's valuable role in Christianity. Also, I'm still a staunch Atheist, but location and circumstance require that I think about faith a lot more than I typically would.]