Sets

Mistakes may be the mother of wisdom, or at least, sometimes. Teaching third grade was one such mistake for me; one from which I repented with ashes, moans and tears for nine months (How come one school year is the same length as the human gestation period?). The wisdom, or knowledge, was sets. When it comes to math, I’m an ignoramus. I can add three numbers and come up with four answers. It took three tries to pass algebra. No rockets scientist am I. Those who hired me to teach third grade neglected to remind me of the fact that I would be teaching math. But here’s what came of all that: One day, fairly early on in the school year was titled, “sets.” Now I’ve heard of sets of china, dominoes, baseball cards and playing cards, but never of numbers. It was a brave new world for math teachers in 1971: the New Math was all the rage and predictions of higher math scores were jubilantly trumpeted from every educational platform. Sets was a part of New Math. Here’s what I finally figured out after straining every brain neuron available to me at the time: A set is a group of items which are related in some way. Voila! A set of china; a set of related numbers. Now a set can contain any number of items: five marbles; one hundred carrots; a million people; the population of the USA; the number of atoms in the solar system; the number of subatomic particles in the universe. Following this series, we could say there is a set of everything. Everything designated by me as “E,” contains all that is known, knowable and unknowable; all things physical, all things not physical; all thought, feeling, and reasoning; all interactions between beings and all relationships: Everything. So what’s the point. The point is that I wasn’t the first to think of Everything. St. John, St. Paul and others thought of these things long before. John says: “Without Him was nothing made that was made.” Paul says: “…all things were created by Him and for Him.” The author of Hebrews says: He “…sustains all things.” Even more comprehensive than the quotations above is Paul’s statement in Romans (11:36): Of Him, through Him, to Him are all things. To me, these few words contain, in seed, all that ever was, that ever will be and all that now is; a set of “E:: Everything. If E is out of, sustain through and returns to Him, if all that is, the set of E, created by and for Him, sustained by Him and returns to Him, where do we draw the line? We who call ourselves by His Name, agree that all good things come from Him. What about the loss of a job, bankruptcy, the death of a parent, espouse, a child? What about our own death? To push the envelope a little more: What about evil in general? What about evil in specific?: Iraq/Afghanistan, Cambodia, NAZI Germany, Stalin’s Russia,? How about individuals: Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer? In other words, we who wish to know our God are faced with some pretty tough questions. Those who are his detractors say something like: If there is a god, he is either evil or impotent: if he cannot prevent evil, he is impotent; if he does not, then he is evil, since he could if he would. The Hindu religion worships Kali, the creator. Her other name is Destroyer. Around her neck is a necklace of human skulls. Do they have an insight into the Creator/Sustainer God whom we worship which we do not? Barbara Ehrenreich, an author whom I admire for her insight into social justice themes once wrote, after the tsunami which took 200000,000 live, “If there is a god, he has a lot for which to apologize to the human race.” If we turn to our own scriptures, in the first few chapters, we have the two trees: the tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. My thoughts, until recently, were that the latter tree was a test which Adam & Eve failed bringing woe into the world-a Pandora box opened against the wish of Creator/Sustainer. But what if the woe we experience as life, the bad and the good of it, were His plan all along? What if the cross is His magnificent apology to Ms. Ehrenreich and the rest of us? What if this Valley of Death is a required stage in His master plan to bring all things right? Could it be that the pearl of our complete beauty can only be created by the irritant and pain of this life and is best displayed against the black velvet of darkness and death? In the early days of World War II, planning began for the invasion which was later called D Day. Huge amounts of weapons, supplies and personnel were marshaled on the east coast of England in preparation. Planning took years. Finally the day, D Day, arrive: June 7, 1941. The invasion, ultimately successful, could not have happened earlier. Certain steps, much preparation, many false leads planted, other victories attained before the “end of the beginning,” as Churchill put it. What if, on a cosmic scale, evil is necessary; a required state of being, for the Ultimate Purpose of God to be carried out? What if the pain and suffering we endure is a painful surgery that will ultimately heal and finally bring into right and harmony and maturity that which Adam was not? To me, this puts He Whom I worship into a far grander role, a more wondrous, three-dimensional being than the cardboard god who is either evil for evil’s sake, weak or capricious. The Cross and He who died on it, stand out in stark relief, a sacred apology, a blood oath fulfilled, a complete cure for all that is and was and is yet to come. What about my own individual sins? Those things which so easily beset me? The things that drag me down and separate me from Him who is my joy? Could they too have a role in all of this? Think for a moment on these scriptures: For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Romans 11:32 But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring! Romans 11:12 What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, as it is written: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day."