Confronting the Ugliness of Life
Painting by Peter Paul Rubens from Wikipedia
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Savor the Story Series
Appreciating the stories in the Bible involves more than critical study. In this series of occasional posts, Gordon Raynal engages Bible stories as works of literature to enjoy. He invites a playful and imaginative approach to the stories. Not assuming that the Bible is literal fact can free creativity in hearing and interacting with its stories. Rev. Raynal is a retired religious leader well-read in critical scholarship with a lifelong engagement with Bible stories. This series will offer examples of how we can allow biblical stories to engage our imaginations in a deeper appreciation of biblical texts.
For more about the series, check out the interview with Gordon Raynal, Podcast 5 on the Podcast page.
Previous posts engaged our imaginations with the creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2 as Creativity Stories.
Here we turn to Genesis 3 —11 about Facing the Darkness part 1.
Facing the Darkness Part One
Genesis 1 and 2 open us up to the experience of beauty and love through stories of delight and the joy of living. The Bible has a rich opening, but it invites us to the fullness of human experience, which includes the darkness of life. Looking through social media feeds and watching the morning news can make us feel like “the News” should be called “Bad News”. The world can be sweet and filled with intimate love, but there is plenty of horror and pain. Our inhumanity as human beings is a stark reality.
Philosophy, theology, and ethics have all tried to give an answer to the root of ugliness in our existence. One way or another, reflections on human ugliness, and restoring the beauty of living, are essential. Historical-critical approaches to reading the Bible offer many important reflections, but the literary perspective offers another wealth of resources by seeing the Bible as dramatic story telling and poetry. The power of this literary reading is seen when the creativity of nature and romantic love, found in Genesis 1 and 2, are followed by four stories about the ugliness of life.
The Ugliness of Life: Genesis 3–11
Ugliness consistently rears its head between spouses, between generations of family, in human communities, and in politics around the world. As human beings we all have the pain and sorrow of knowing ugliness well. Genesis cleverly aligns stories about the pain of life as it describes losing the garden of Eden, Cain’s murder of Abel, the great flood, and the Tower of Babel. These narratives show the reality of a world filled with distrust in personal relationships, jealousy that leads to murder, and evil that affects communities of all sizes. The four stories are quite dramatic, and sadly show the creativity human beings use in creating ugliness. The Bible quickly turns from the wonder of creation, and the beauty of intimate love, to ugliness in these dramatic and powerful narratives.
The Power of Drama
The creation of drama helps us explore the pain and trauma we encounter as human beings, and the Bible presents drama after drama as a powerful response to help confront this reality. This unfolding drama shows us that people in the ancient world felt and understood pain and hurt as we do. We continue to artistically explore drama as a response to human ugliness through movies, television, documentaries, musicals, and more. Great drama has been a significant tool from before Genesis was written until now to cope with the pain of existence. Immersing ourselves in these artistic endeavors is an important resource to find light and hope in the midst of so much hurt, and a valuable connection to the past.
Using great works like the Bible to confront the darkness of life is an important resource to find the power of love refreshed in our lives.